


The Wild Hunt

by Guede



Category: Aerosmith (Band), Rock Music RPF, Steven Tyler (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Bad Flirting, Bickering, Crack Treated Seriously, Crushes, Detox, Fights, Getting Together, Hand Jobs, House Party, Humor, M/M, Making Out, Origin Story, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27568543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: Teenage Aerosmith origination story with a couple extra twists.  Because they had a plan, and then it went for a walk in the woods.
Relationships: Joe Perry/Steven Tyler
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	The Wild Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LiveJournal in 2012.

“Joe, we need a plan,” Tom said.

“Yeah.” Joe slumped down on the bench next to Tom and stared at their amps, which were piled across from them. His glasses slid down his nose and he shoved them up, then yanked them off. One arm caught in his hair, slowing him just enough for him to reconsider flinging them into his car like he’d been meaning. His parents had been pretty good about the band and what he was doing with his life, all considering, but they had insisted on getting a couple things straight before they cut him completely loose—one more year of school, paying off the car and waiting till the doctor said his eyes were fixed. The year of school was the hardest part, but he could handle it. They hadn’t said anything about the grades, after all.

Eyeglasses, stupid as they were, were the easiest. He had one more check-up and then he could probably ditch them. He basically only wore them now because, since they were using his parents’ garage for practice, he’d get yelled at if his mother walked in and saw him without them.

“Joe.” Tom elbowed him, probably thinking he’d drifted off again. They hadn’t smoked that much pot. “Joe, we need a _singer_.”

“Yeah, I _know_ ,” Joe mumbled. He pulled his glasses out of his hair, then let his arm flop to the bench. “And a fucking drummer. I swear, I’m going to kill Pudge the next time I see him. Whenever that is.”

Tom made some agreeing noise, but he was really still on the singer problem. Which was pretty serious at this point, since they’d played five gigs at this point at five different places—close to maxing out all the local spots—and none of them had wanted them back. A couple of compliments in there, but mostly, a bunch of shit about how if they really wanted to get anywhere, they needed to learn how to fucking sing. As the current singer, Joe wasn’t actually too offended. He knew how much time he was spending on his guitar versus at the mike and he didn’t think changing that was going to help too much. He didn’t really want to change that.

So they needed to get somebody. “Who?” Joe asked. “And don’t say—”

“I went by the Tallarico place the other day,” Tom started. He slid a look at Joe, then got off the bench and went to stand so he could look out the open garage door. If you were as tall as him, and cricked your neck a bit, you could sometimes just see the shimmer of the lake past the trees. “Guess who’s back in town. Well, not really in town, but he’s around.”

“Steven? Steven Tallarico?”

“He’s calling himself Steven Tyler now, but yeah,” Tom said. He moved over for Joe, then leaned against Joe’s car and pointed to the left, where the houses started to fade into the woods. “Heard he moved into one of the cabins at that abandoned motel on the north side. Cleaned it up, showed up in town with a stack of rabbit skins to sell like some mountain guy.”

Joe looked at him, but Tom seemed serious enough. Of course Tom always looked like he was thinking it over, which was why he never got clocked for being stoned, but he really didn’t look like he was trying to pull one over Joe. “I thought he and his band were heading out for the big time, got a deal and all that.”

“Yeah, well, his band’s not around. As far as I know, it’s just him up there.” Tom shuffled his feet. “I was hanging with his cousin a couple days ago. I…don’t think anybody’s really heard what happened, but Augie says Steven’s not doing anything he knows about. Was saying something about him being kind of quiet, for him.”

“What’s that mean? That he’s just tearing up the place on alternate days?” Joe muttered. He was still looking over where Tom had pointed. The road up to that motel had gotten taken out by a couple fallen trees, some storm over the winter, and since the place had closed down nobody had bothered to clear out the debris. But he could drive to where the road split from the highway, and the walk from there up to the cabins wasn’t that bad. “How long’s he been back?”

“A week or so,” Tom muttered back. He shifted his weight again. “He _is_ pretty good.”

Joe nodded. “Yeah. Look, I’m not waiting on Pudge’s ass anymore. If we’re going to get anything done, we’d better…”

Tom was already turning back for his bass. After another moment, Joe went and got his guitar, and they stopped talking and just worked.

* * *

Steven Tallarico, Tyler, whatever, wasn’t just pretty good. He was _good_ , and anybody with ears knew it. He also—at least from what Joe remembered—acted like it, coming into the town’s little main street with a big group like a king and his court, taking over anywhere he went into and trashing it, doing all the things you weren’t supposed to do and mostly getting away with it. Sometimes he wasn’t that bad, people said. He’d done some really nice things for his friends, shit that got whispered over beer cans, and he had come back that one time to rave about Joe’s fries.

He’d been in the night before with his crew and torn the place up, and kept Joe from going out with some friends to catch a concert in the next town over, so Joe hadn’t given him the usual adoration. Maybe he’d noticed, since he’d been in a lot after that but hadn’t come back again. Or maybe he was just too busy off being a rock star and all that.

Joe sighed and shook his head, because honestly, he barely knew the guy. Then he spotted the turn-off for the motel and eased down the brake, pulling the car over to the side of the highway.

The motel had been one of those speculation things, some bigshot real estate guy coming down for a vacation and thinking he was the first one to have the bright idea of starting up a wilderness retreat for rich out-of-towners. The whole hook had been individual cabins instead of one big building, so people could pretend they were pioneers roughing it, and it’d lasted a couple of seasons before it’d run out of money. Joe had been up there a couple of times while it’d been running, once because he was trying to make some pocket money selling tours around the lake for a friend’s boat business, and once because he’d thought he could make it with a girl whose family had been staying up there.

He’d thought it’d looked nice enough, but hadn’t really paid too much attention at the time. The walk was longer than he remembered, for one thing, and getting over the fallen trees was a bitch since he wasn’t wearing hiking boots. Joe made a note to tell Tom that next time they were catching Steven in town.

Second thing was that the cabins were more spread out than Joe remembered. He got up to what used to be the main building, where the check-in and staff were, and after some circling around the dump, only managed to spot one cabin. It was a good hundred yards off, but Joe didn’t have to get closer than fifty to see the trashed insides past the jagged shards left in the window frames and figure out that it was the wrong cabin. He still didn’t have any idea where the other cabins were.

He backtracked to the main building again. The place was two stories, with a big sagging porch that swayed when Joe tried to step on it. He got off back onto the ground, not wanting his foot to smash through the rotten boards, and stared around the place. Probably he should’ve asked Tom more questions about just where he’d heard Steven was staying, but Joe had been pissed off about Pudge ditching practice and their not being able to hold down a gig even though he knew they’d be worth it. Eventually. When they got their shit straightened out, and that was what annoyed him about Steven Tyler. The man had this incredible fucking voice—and knew his drums too, even if Joe had heard that had once driven Steven to attempted homicide—and had the attitude to match, and he was making it all work so why couldn’t…

Joe stared at the grimy glass for a second, not quite realizing what it was he was seeing. Then he swore and jumped and spun around, and Steven Tyler gave him a big, white grin.

“Hello!” he said. He’d grown out his hair some more since the last time Joe had seen him, that and taken to running eyeliner around his eyes, and for a moment Joe had to stop and think and remember that Steven was a guy. The crazy robe, coat, kimono Steven had on, this red silk thing with green snakes—over otherwise normal t-shirt, jeans, and boots—didn’t help with the first impression. “Looking for somebody? You’re Joe, right? Tom was saying something about dragging you up here.”

“Tom?” Joe said, blinking. “Tom Hamilton?”

Steven frowned. He stepped back, his robe billowing around him till he batted half of it back behind himself, and then made a kind of cutting gesture a couple inches above his head. “Yay high, blond guy, kind of talks like a dictionary?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s him.” Joe stepped away from the porch, absently tugging at his coat when the wind got up under it. It’d been an oddly cool summer so far, though they were supposed to start getting heat waves next week. “He came up to see you?”

“Nah, I saw him. This morning, I went into town to grab a couple things and ran into him, and we just got to chatting since I’ve been away and wanna catch up on everybody, and you know,” Steven said, flipping his hand. He went past Joe and right up onto the porch, even bouncing on the damn bendy boards, and then began prowling around the windows, stretching and twisting and craning his whole body around like an oversize jack-in-the-box. “Like this place. You know, I remember when it first opened and it was such a big deal, but I actually think it’s way cooler now when you can do whatever and nobody’s screaming at you to get out and pull up your pants.”

For a moment Joe stared at Steven’s robe, with those snakes looking like they were coiling up and down the man’s back. Then he shook his head. “Yeah. Yeah, well, so did Tom tell you—”

“Hey! Awesome!” Steven stuffed his hand into his robe, getting the fabric wound around his fingers, and then punched out what was left of the glass in his current window. He shook his hand free and then eeled in over the jamb. “You have to check this out.”

Joe stood by the porch and listened to Steven tramping around inside the place. He opened his mouth and the damn glasses slid down his nose again—shoved those up, shoved his hair out of his face and then gingerly picked his way up the steps and over to the window. “This place looks pretty beat up, you know.”

Maybe Steven heard him, maybe he didn’t. Either way, he had his head stuffed into an old fireplace, still rattling on and on and Joe couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Then he suddenly jerked stiff. His arm came out and flailed around, then slapped at the bricks like—like something _had_ him. 

“Steven—” Joe started.

The other man let out a muffled scream, twisting and whipping about, going down to one knee, and then he just—fell over. Swearing, Joe got his feet over the sill, no idea what the hell he was supposed to do. Pull Steven out, fight whatever it was, he just—he stumbled, barely missed the broken glass, had to catch himself on his hand and was just getting back up when Steven twined himself out of the fireplace. In one piece, right up to the shit-eating grin.

“Awww, so that’s what it takes to get you in here,” Steven said, beaming.

Joe stared at him. Then set his glasses on straight, though that didn’t make a damn bit of difference in how much of a smug son of a bitch Steven was. “You’re an asshole.”

“Anyhoo, check this out,” Steven said. He came up to Joe and then kept going, and when Joe put his arm up to protect himself, Steven grabbed it and dragged Joe over to the fireplace. He yanked Joe down so they were both looking into the back. “Look, see, it’s hollow.”

Steven rapped on the bottom of the fireplace, which looked like solid stone but rang like a bell. Then he let go of Joe’s arm to frisk around the edges, and after a couple seconds, managed to figure out how to get the trap up. Underneath wasn’t much of a space, but it was big enough for a rusty-looking sawed-off shotgun, which Steven promptly claimed, and a couple bottles that were filled with something. The shotgun had Steven’s hands busy so Joe grabbed a bottle and lifted it out.

He couldn’t read the label, mildewed and faded as it was, but he got the top off and one whiff told him it was alcoholic. At least, it’d been alcoholic at some point.

“I heard they built this over an old smuggler hangout,” Steven was saying. “Bet this was left over.”

“Jesus, how old is this?” Joe muttered. He turned around to get the light on the bottle and some of the stuff splashed out. There were solid bits in it.

Steven took the bottle from Joe and smelled it. He tilted it so he could look into it with one eye, then—fucking _drank_ from it. And stood there, blinking, his mouth occasionally twitching, while Joe gaped at him like an idiot. Finally he screwed up his face and walked over to the window, where he dumped out the rest of the bottle. “Not recommended,” he said, tone going posh, like some Brit. “Definitely not a vintage improved by the years gone by.”

“You’re going to die,” Joe said. He scuffed at his hair. “I can’t believe you—you’re going to die. That shit is going to kill you. Jesus.”

“You always this cheerful?” Steven asked. He looked over his shoulder at Joe and the light hit his eyes funny. Then he bent over to set the bottle on the floor, and when he stood back up, he just looked like a jerk. “Hey. Hey, what, are you really worried?”

“You drank that,” Joe said, staring at the other man. “I mean—it had fucking chunks.”

“Oh, it’s just raisins.” Steven went back to the fireplace and hauled out the other bottle. He popped the top, took a sip from it, and then grinned at Joe while upending the remainder of the bottle into the fireplace. “Calm down. I found this on my second day here, washed these out and put in some beer and raisins.”

For a moment Joe tried to think of something to say. He looked at the puddle at Steven’s feet, then at Steven. Then he just shook his head and climbed back out of the window. His foot came down on a soft spot and almost went through, and he had to hop double-time like a fucking bunny off the porch, and all in all, he wasn’t feeling too friendly towards Steven.

“Hey, man, thanks for visiting!” Steven called after him. “Still remember those fries!”

“Oh, fuck you,” Joe muttered. Once he’d gotten to the ground, he kept going.

He didn’t remember that he’d actually come here to see Steven about something till he was three-quarters of the way back to the car. Joe was still pretty fucking steamed, so he didn’t let that stop him. Maybe they needed a singer, but they did not have to put up with a fucking wiseass cracking shit at Joe’s expense.

* * *

“He seemed all right to me when I ran into him,” Tom said, once Joe had filled him in on the trip. “Even gave me his cell number, so if I wanted to come by, he’d come walk me past all the traps.”

They’d regrouped in the Anchor Bar, scene of those fries that Steven liked so much and that Joe was going to stick up Steven’s ass the next time they saw each other. Joe didn’t work there anymore, but as a veteran of the place he usually could cadge an extra side dish, some perk like that, so it was one of their regular meal stops. “Thinks he’s Davy Crockett on stand-up or what?” Joe muttered, biting into his burger. “What traps?”

“Where are you talking about?” asked a girl waiting for checkout. When Tom filled her in, she nodded knowingly. “Yeah, I thought so. Didn’t you hear? They’re saying somebody saw bears up around there, so animal control’s telling everybody to stay away till they catch it. Pretty brave of Steven to be living way out there, all by himself.”

Joe would have said something about Steven’s bravery, but Tom cursing cut him off. He looked back to find that Tom staring in disgust at the giant clump of ketchup he’d just knocked onto his plate. Then Tom sighed and shoved the ketchup bottle to the side. “Seriously, I wish you’d said you were going up. Steven says there’s a lot of old dangerous shit lying around and he almost got caught a couple of times himself.”

“Yeah, well, Steven can talk as much as he fucking wants,” Joe said. “He obviously gets off on it. And look, I know we need a singer, but I don’t know that we need—”

There was this—this sound. Like a scream in how it sent shivers up your spine, but those shivers were the good ones, the ones you got when you knew you were running towards something fucking amazing, even if you were going a little too fast and hard. You still knew it’d be worth it if you broke something along the way, so you’d keep going.

And then Joe realized he was listening to somebody singing. He could see everybody else in the place got it too, the way their heads were whipping around, how some of the girls were biting their lips, because that sound went straight in, no fucking around. He was halfway out of his seat to figure out who the hell it was when they strolled in the door, still with that shit-eating grin, only paired up with a different wild coat.

Steven finished the chorus, took a bow to wild applause, and then commandeered the nearest table, which of course had some of the most attractive girls in town seated at it. “He got better,” Tom said after a moment.

“Yeah.” Joe felt something warm running down his wrist and looked there to find his burger leaking all over. He hissed and hunted around for a napkin, then gave up on finding one in time and just licked it off. Ten seconds in and Steven was already getting kisses—Steven caught him staring, nodded, and held up a fry, and Joe discovered that as long as Steven wasn’t singing, Joe still wanted to punch him. “Shit. Okay. He’s good.”

Some of the other guys were going over too, asking Steven about where he’d been, and one of them, maybe because of the eyeliner, was doing it kind of flirty. Steven flirted back, got a kiss from _him_ , and then got into a mudslinging match when a local redneck took offense. 

“He…didn’t do that before either,” Tom observed.

“No,” Joe said, blinking hard.

One blink was all it took for a fight to break out. Steven wasn’t built like much—taller than Joe by a little, probably about the same in width—but he fought like a motherfucker, dirty and hard, and he’d knocked the redneck back into the wall before Joe and Tom could do more than stand up. Then the manager came out and threw out pretty much everybody before it could go any further.

Joe managed to grab his and Tom’s food before they had to go. They passed by Steven’s table on the way out and there was a fork bent in two lying on it. A metal one, and Joe had about enough time to wonder when that had happened before they were outside and watching Steven, entourage still intact, roll on down the street towards the local bar. About ninety percent of that group, including Steven, weren’t old enough to get in, but Joe had a feeling that wasn’t going to matter.

“Jesus, that was kickass,” breathed a guy standing near Joe and Tom. Joe recognized him from one of the regional battle of the bands contests they’d tried to get into to earlier in the year. Lead guitar for a half-decent group, but they were constantly blowing gigs because the lead singer didn’t get along with the drummer. “Damn. I gotta call the guys.”

Tom shot Joe a look, like Joe couldn’t put two and two together himself. Joe shoved the man’s food at him and then they headed for the only other place open at this hour that they could get into.

* * *

“On the bright side,” Tom said, scraping the bottom of his sundae, “Now that we know his type, we’ve got another line of attack.”

“His type?” Joe poked his spoon into his melting ice cream. Sweet things weren’t really his thing, but he’d been distracted by Tom’s constant muttering about luring in Steven, like the man was some kind of animal, and had let the counter girl talk him into it. “What, anything that walks? And the number of legs doesn’t matter?”

Tom looked sternly at him. “That rumor’s not verified.”

“Jesus, you sound half in love with him,” Joe said. He scraped all the hot fudge off his ice cream and mounded it up on the side of the dish, then just stabbed the spoon into it and slouched back, letting his arms drop to his sides. “Why don’t you ask him out already?”

“Because one, I like girls, and two, that guy he macked on wasn’t blond,” Tom told him.

Joe sat back up. “You’re saying I should—should make out with him?”

“No, I’m just saying…look, first we have to get him to just hear us out, and so far that’s been pretty tough. He’s always got a ton of people around. That was the problem when I ran into him. We barely started talking before he saw somebody else he knew and went off,” Tom said. He pushed his sundae aside and leaned towards Joe. “All I’m saying is we need to get his attention.”

It made sense for a second. When Joe was just thinking about the general point Tom was trying to make. It was when he started thinking about the details that he went back to being pissed off. “Yeah, sure. There wasn’t anybody else up by the motel today except us and he was such an asshole I didn’t even get around to asking him where his band was. So what are we going to do about that?”

“Joe.” Tom rubbed at the side of his face. “You just have to ignore him being an asshole long enough to tell him that we have a band and that we’d really, really, really love it if he considered joining it. How hard is that, honestly?”

The bell on the door chimed just as Joe was about to tell Tom, honestly, how hard it might be, and of course it was Steven walking in. He’d lost the group from earlier and was by himself, whistling a Beatles tune under his breath as he inspected the different flavors. The counter girl started offering him testers and he of course took them, and then licked each one like he was shooting porn. Just curled his tongue around the little plastic spoons like those snakes had curled on his coat.

Tom kicked Joe under the table. Joe jerked up and put his arm down on the table, maybe kind of loud, and Steven looked over. He seemed surprised to see them there, but recovered with one of his grins. “Hey, what’s good?” he asked. “What’d you get?”

“The special,” Joe said, before he could put any thought into it. He pulled his arm off the table and twisted around to face the counter. “The—”

“It’s two scoops of the lime with hot fudge and all the whipped cream you want,” the counter girl said. She smiled and slid a piece of hair back behind her ear with one finger. “Big seller.”

“Oh, I bet, honey,” Steven said, smiling back. “All right, I’ll get one of those. Hey, Joe, so you forgive me for this morning?”

Joe had an idea that Tom was going to kick him again and twisted his leg around the chair, keeping its leg between him and the other man’s foot. He couldn’t help grinning a little when he felt Tom’s toes hit the metal and heard Tom swear. “What, the raisins and shit? It was a pretty stupid joke.”

The counter girl was taking her time scooping up the ice cream, angling herself so Steven could get a good look at her cleavage through the counter glass. Steven was taking that good look and was so into it that he gave the door instead of Joe a dismissive wave. “Oh, well, one man’s stupid joke is another man’s life’s work.”

“The hell does that mean?” Joe said after a second. “You were just trying to fake me out.”

Steven finally looked over his shoulder. He’d stopped grinning, but his eyes were too wide and too demure, like he didn’t know why Joe was annoyed. “Well, worked, didn’t it? You hauled ass out of there like somebody had set your pants on fire.”

“Four-fifty,” the counter girl said, pushing the sundae over to Steven. 

He looked back at her, smiled, and handed her a five-dollar bill. “Keep the change,” he said. He picked up the sundae, snagged a spoon, and then headed for the door. 

“Why’d you even have that shit set up?” Joe said. “Were you just waiting for somebody to wander up there for a dumb prank?”

Steven had his hand on the door and for a moment Joe thought he was going to keep going. Then he pulled back and turned around. He dipped his spoon and brought it up, lipping off the ice cream while he studied Joe. It was a little unnerving since his funny airhead act didn’t give any clues that he could have that kind of focus.

“I guess I get bored easy,” he finally said. He ate some more ice cream. “Why were you wandering around up there? You do that a lot?”

“No. I just heard you were up there and went to see for myself.” Joe shrugged and sat back, annoyed at himself for getting nervous. His glasses slipped on his nose and he irritably shoved them back into place. “What, I can’t do that? It’s not like it’s all your property up there.”

“Yeah, well, you came, you saw, you went,” Steven said, like he was brushing something off his shoulder. He had himself another spoonful, nodded to Tom, and then headed out. The counter girl called for him to drop by tomorrow if he wanted, since they were changing up the special and it was her shift, and Steven gave her a smile over his shoulder but didn’t stop.

He headed on down the street after that. Didn’t look like he was going for a car, and Joe was starting to think that the man was going to walk all the way back to his cabin when a nice sports car pulled up next to Steven. Whoever was driving it opened up the passenger door and Steven hopped on in, taking extra care to pull in that ridiculous coat of his, and then they sped off.

“All right,” Tom said. “This is going to take a little work.”

“Tom.” Joe looked at him. “He’s an asshole.”

“You’re getting really irritated at him just for that,” Tom said slowly, like there was some hidden meaning that was going to become clear at a lower speed. “Anyway, do you have any other ideas for singers?”

After a couple minutes’ silence, Joe sighed and put his elbows up on the table. He leaned his face into his hands, pressing at his eyes, and then curled his fingers so he could look at Tom. “Even if I was…nicer…you think he’d actually notice?”

Tom considered it. “Well, maybe if you ditch the glasses early?”

* * *

Joe got in trouble for coming in late that night, even though he’d done his best to be quiet about it and at least respect when his parents felt like going to sleep. The whole bear thing was getting some legs, since apparently some kids had driven out to a local make-out spot and had had some animal get on top of their car, claw it up and scare them to death. Next day, word around town was that maybe they’d enforce a curfew till this thing was caught.

Word also was that maybe it wasn’t a bear, but was some other weird thing, and people were bringing up so-called old Native American legends and Bigfoot and all other kinds of ridiculous things. That was how Joe and Tom tracked down Pudge, finding him in the middle of the gossip, and had argued with the guy till he’d finally told them they might as well not consider him part of the band anymore. It’d been coming for a while, but it was still fucking annoying.

Tom was philosophical about it, talking about how Steven drummed too and maybe they could start off on a tangent by just asking him if he knew of any replacements, and just going on and on about it till Joe was kind of glad when Tom had to leave for his summer job. Joe had one as well, but his was the night shift so he had his days free. Usually for band practice, but not really any fucking band at the moment, so…Joe took a boat out onto the lake.

He motored around aimlessly for a while, just letting the wind burn off his mood, and then he turned the boat towards the part of the shore where those two kids had gotten surprised the night before. The actual spot was way up on a hill that overlooked the lake and he couldn’t really see it from the water, but he could just go back and forth in front of the hill and see that it still looked pretty normal. Bears weren’t that big of a deal, more of a nuisance than anything else, and probably the kids had been drunk, high, busy, or some mix of those. He hoped they didn’t pull a curfew just because of a couple scared morons and ruin everybody else’s summer.

By then Joe was running a little low on gas, so he headed back. He was passing by the old motel when the engine sputtered and choked on him, lasting barely long enough for him to get it to what was left of the motel’s dock.

It wasn’t that big of a problem, even if he wasn’t that much of a mechanic, and he was almost done fixing it when he heard something behind him. This time Steven gave him a little warning.

“Back here again?” Steven said, and then looked again. “What happened to your glasses?”

They’d gotten a lot of dirty spray on them when Joe had been messing with the engine, so he’d taken them off and tossed them back into the boat. “Didn’t want to bother with them anymore.” Joe sat up on his knees, absently wiping his hands on his jeans. “You hunting?”

He pointed at Steven’s hand, which had what looked like dried blood and fur stuck to a couple fingers. Steven lifted his hand and looked at it, then snorted. “Oh, yeah. Earlier. Getting my dinner.”

“Are you kidding?” Joe said, looking at the other man. The jeans and the t-shirt made sense, but the heeled boots didn’t. No fancy coat today, but plenty of eyeliner and what looked like feathers braided into the man’s hair. “You’re really doing the wilderness survival thing?”

“Well, I am living in a log cabin,” Steven told him, straight-faced. Then he laughed so hard he had to support himself on his knees. “Oh, nah, I just knock out a couple squirrels and rabbits from the porch to keep my aim good. I’ve got Internet and plumbing, man.”

Joe started to get up, then checked that the boat was tied securely to the dock. Then he stood and started looking around. He hadn’t been here for too long, so if Steven had come straight down from the place, it had to be nearby. “I thought this place was abandoned. How’d you get all that shit in?”

“Oh, I know the owner. It _is_ abandoned, but that doesn’t mean nobody’s interested in it,” Steven said. He waved vaguely behind himself. “Only was out a couple years, too. All the power lines and things were still there, just had to pay an arm and a leg for somebody to come out and flip all the switches.”

It didn’t sound completely impossible, and given Steven’s family’s connections, he probably would know the kind of person who’d build luxury cabins for a business that lasted only half the year. And Steven was meeting Joe’s eyes, looking completely casual about it, so maybe he wasn’t just bullshitting.

“Anyway, what are you doing back here?” Steven asked. “Didn’t satisfy your curiosity the other day?”

“I was just passing by and the engine fucked up,” Joe muttered. He turned and bent back down to see if the damn thing would work now, and smiled when it did. Then he turned it off and looked back at Steven. “Think you made it pretty clear last night that you don’t want tourists.”

“You’re a sensitive soul,” Steven said after a moment, keeping his tone just this side of sarcastic. He rubbed his hand against his leg, then pushed some hair back from his face with it. Paused, blinked, and then pulled out what Joe thought had been feathers, but actually seemed to be fur, with one end of it dark and sticky enough to cling to Steven’s fingers when he tried to flick it off. “Damn it.”

Joe laughed and Steven looked up, uncertain for the second it took him to pick a smile to go with. “You skin your stuff or what?” Joe said. “Doesn’t that make a mess?”

“Well, that’s what the nail polish helps with.” Steven held up his hand so Joe could see that some of the blood was really chipped black polish, then finally managed to scrape off that fur. He wandered across the docks and looked at Joe’s hands. “You’re pretty fucking messy yourself.”

Before Joe could help himself, he’d scrubbed his knuckles a couple times across his hips. He made himself stop, irritated, and then just stooped and got a rag out of the boat to wipe off his hands. “Yeah, it happens.”

Steven looked at him for a little longer, like he was supposed to say more. When Joe didn’t, Steven turned and stared out over the lake. He moved around a lot, shifting his weight, picking at his jeans, but it didn’t look nervous. He didn’t have that closed-in look, like he was worried about what was going to get at him. It was more like he was trying to keep something from getting out. He hummed something under his breath, something Joe almost recognized before Steven abruptly turned towards him.

“So, hear about the bears?” he said.

“Yeah.” Joe shrugged. “Haven’t seen one myself, but you’re out here, maybe you should get something besides your squirrel gun in case.”

Steven smiled at him. It wasn’t one Joe had seen before. Big and toothy, but it wasn’t just making fun of him. The white teeth made Steven’s pupils look bottomlessly dark, and the whites of Steven’s eyes almost glowed between those and the black eyeliner. He didn’t look remotely like anybody else Joe had ever seen, even without that grin, and with it, he didn’t quite look like any person. “I’ll be good. I think I’ll be good.”

Then he snapped his head down and went over to look into the boat. Joe belatedly went after him, remembering the damn glasses would be showing—half-wondering why he gave a damn—but by the time he got over, Steven was already turning around.

“Doesn’t look like you’ve got anything to hold off the bears,” Steven said. “You fix it?”

“Yeah,” Joe finally said. He started to get into the boat, then remembered exactly what it was about the glasses, and fucking Tom, and fucking needing a singer. “Hey, so…”

Steven had been a good three feet away but when Joe looked up, he was kneeling right in front of Joe. Startled, Joe put his other foot into the boat and only then saw that Steven was untying the boat. “Here,” Steven said, and tossed him the end without being asked. “Hey, you know, you should call if you’re coming over here. There’s a lot of shit people have left around and I’m still running into it.”

“Like you’re some caretaker? That how you got the cabin?” Joe asked. Even without the engine running, the current was already pulling the boat away from the dock. He reached out for the nearest pier, but tripped over the rope and had to sit down to keep the boat from tipping over. “Hey, but I don’t have your number!”

“Next time!” Steven called back. He waved at Joe, bright smile on his face, like some fucking grandma seeing off her grandkids.

At that point it was too late to grab for the dock. Joe could have used the engine to steer back, but then he’d look like he was trying for something. Instead of what he was doing, which was swearing under his breath and turning on the engine to go home.

* * *

“This doesn’t work if you actively _avoid_ him, Joe,” Tom said.

Joe slouched down on the couch and let his guitar slouch with him. “Yeah, well, it also doesn’t work if he’s trying to get me to go away, and I think he is.”

Tom let him fiddle on a riff for a few minutes, long enough to think that maybe they were off the subject. “Why would he be trying to get you to go away?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s got a meth lab up there or something that he doesn’t want people to know about. I’m not him.” The riff twisted on him, Joe forgetting where he was going with it and just trying to force it, and went shitty. Disgusted, Joe fell back into one of his favorite Jeff Beck solos, and then just gave up on that too. He wasn’t feeling it right now. “Anyway, he doesn’t want me around there.”

“Or maybe, if he’s trying to hide something there, it’s about keeping anybody from seeing it. So if you saw him in town, he’d be different,” Tom pointed out. He had long since given up on his bass and it was sitting in a case at his feet. “I do have his number. I could call and ask when he’s going to be down next.”

Joe had forgotten Tom mentioning that. “Then why haven’t you fucking called him yet?”

“Because I wanted to make sure that you’d show up if we did that,” Tom said. He picked his joint off the table and dragged on it, then gave it a frustrated look. “This really shouldn’t be that difficult. But somehow it is, and even weed’s not chilling me out.”

“Yeah, well, you try being the one who’s supposed to drag his attention off all the fucking girls in this town.” That reminded Joe about his joint, which when he checked, had nearly burned out. He swallowed a curse and put out what was left, and then was going to roll a fresh one when he heard a car pulling up the drive.

They had a scramble to get the windows open and the room aired out, and all the pot out of the way before Joe’s parents came in. It wasn’t for long, just to pick up some stuff they’d forgotten, and then they were off on their day trip again, but it basically killed the mood so Joe and Tom ended up moving to the porch facing the lake.

“It’s really starting to sound like a curfew’s coming,” Tom said. “Don’t know if you heard, but some guy said he saw a wolf out by the lake.”

“They’re gonna put in a curfew over a wolf?” Joe flopped back into the nearest chair. “Isn’t that smaller than a bear?”

“Well, yeah, but I guess what happened was that he fell asleep in his boat and then woke up when it was sniffing at him. He freaked out and kicked the engine, and that got it started up and got him away.” After a moment, Tom put his hands out, one higher than the other. “Because the wolf was still on the dock, right.”

It still sounded more like a bad acid trip to Joe, and even if it wasn’t, it wasn’t like anybody had gotten hurt. On the other hand, wolves were different from bears in that they hadn’t been around since the frontier days. “You’re gonna tell me that they’re organizing a hunt next.”

Tom had had his mouth open, but now he shut it.

“Oh.” Joe let his head fall against the top of the chair. He liked hunting himself, but a _hunt_ was a whole different story. Tons of people coming in, all the pros who either ended up making Joe feel like he didn’t know what he was doing or like he was a fucking crazy for just enjoying himself instead of making it his religion. “Figures.”

“Whole bunch of pre-hunt parties going on too,” Tom said. “Look, I was thinking, Steven’s obviously going to come to one of them. We could just call and see where he’s going, and maybe offer him a ride since he doesn’t have a car. And then we can figure out if he’s really chasing you off or not.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, Joe supposed, but he wasn’t exactly loving it either. That last talk with Steven hadn’t just been irritating—it’d been a little weird, and Joe still couldn’t quite figure out why.

“I was in the Anchor yesterday and Don was there, asking after Steven. Sounds like they finally lost their lead singer,” Tom added. “You remember he and Steven were already in a band together, right?”

Joe grimaced. “Oh, fuck, fine. Call him.”

* * *

Tom called Steven, who was apparently delighted to hear from him and delighted to get a ride, and double-delighted to hear that Joe was coming too. Fucking delightful.

Still, since they were doing it Joe was trying to be committed to the plan. He dragged out the garden hose and a bucket and washed down his car that morning, and then spent another hour crawling around the inside checking for trash, loose change, forgotten joints. By the time he was done, his arms and knees ached and his car looked like a fucking palace, and all Tom could talk about when he showed up was what Joe was wearing.

“I got rid of the glasses!” Joe snapped, shoving his way through his closet. “What the hell else am I supposed to do?”

“I’m just saying, it’s like a date, all right? So you don’t dress like a—oh, wait, you do.” Tom paused and looked deeply pained. Then he resumed picking through Joe’s clothes. “Look. You’ve seen what Steven wears, right?”

Joe rolled his eyes. “A blind guy could see what he wears.”

“Well, obviously, he cares about fashion. So even if you don’t give a shit about what you wear, he’s going to,” Tom said. He pulled out a couple hangers, then pushed them back into the closet.

“You’re way too into this, Tom,” Joe said. He backed out of the mess and sat down on the edge of his bed. “I had no idea you were such a matchmaker.”

“I had a pretty good idea when I saw your collection of his songs,” Tom muttered, still digging around in Joe’s closet. Then he stepped back and sighed. “Okay. We’re going about this wrong. It’ll look weird if you just change style all of a sudden.”

Yeah, Joe had downloaded the songs Steven’s various bands had posted to the Internet. They were good. That was the entire reason why they were pulling this stupid shit. “I think he’d notice something was up if I dressed exactly like him. I don’t even know where he gets some of that shit.”

“So just wear what you’d usually wear, but—I don’t know, make it look better.” Tom stared at the closet, hand to mouth, thinking hard.

“Look, are we trying to get him to play with us, or are we trying to get him for something else?” Joe said.

“What else?”

Joe looked hard at Tom because he was checking for any signs that the man had suffered brain damage, or any other reasonable explanation for why his friend was suddenly acting like an idiot with no memory. “I don’t believe this. You’re the one who—”

“I just said, get his attention. Flirt if you have to. It won’t kill you. You want anything else, that’s between you and him,” Tom said. He looked at Joe, then at the closet. Then he sighed. “Although honestly, Joe, I’ve known you for a while and I’d like to think I know what you look like when you’re into somebody. And you look at him like once you get done screaming at him, you’d really like to go off somewhere and…”

“Are you telling me to make out with him or aren’t you?” Joe snapped.

“I’m not telling you to do a damn thing,” Tom snapped back. “I’m telling you, you really want to fuck him and it’d be really helpful if you just stopped pretending that you didn’t.”

Then they let that sit there in the room with them. Once or twice Tom moved like he wanted to go out, but he never really made the decision to squeeze by Joe and get to the door. Joe didn’t move either, though he really—he suddenly really wanted to get his guitar and go somewhere by himself and just do something with that. Just get out all the shit inside and put it outside, into something else, and at the moment his guitar was the only way he really knew how to do that.

“Sorry,” Tom finally said.

Joe grimaced and fidgeted with the bracelet on his right wrist. He’d gotten it on a family trip years ago, back before they were even cool, and had taken shit for it for ages before the rest of the world had finally ended up doing the same thing. Not that he normally cared much what most other people thought about him, but he still did notice that kind of thing. If they made a big deal of it. “You think he’s picked up on that at all?”

“With your charming personality?” Tom snorted. Then he got serious and put out his hands. “I don’t know. You’ve talked to him more than me. I’ve just seen him around town a couple of times. And I think he does have something else going on, you know. I heard he’s screwed a few girls, gotten in a few fights, but he’s really not playing up like before. And I really want to know how he gets around like he does without a car.”

“Maybe he just kissed that guy to fuck with those assholes,” Joe said.

Tom thought about it, then shook his head. “If that’s why, then he likes fucking with nonexistent assholes, because I definitely saw him and another guy behind the Barn and I don’t think they were trying to let people see that.”

“What’d he look like?”

“Brown hair, long.” Tom gestured at his shoulder. “Skinny. I think he was from out of town. Maybe a weekender, since I haven’t seen him since.” 

Joe grimaced again, then made himself get off the bed. He went over to the closet and began going through his shirts. “So I really look at him like that? Since when?”

“Well, since that one gig at the Barn,” Tom said.

“We went to a lot of them,” Joe muttered. He pulled out an old black dress shirt, one he’d been meaning to toss because it was worn nearly transparent and also was a little small, and then he reconsidered.

Tom sighed. “Yeah, basically every one Steven played. Which also was a clue. But I meant the one where we couldn’t get in and sat up against the back, and then realized that that was where the band prepped beforehand.”

“Oh. Right.” Joe took off his shirt and then put on the dress shirt, rolling up the sleeves so them not being long enough didn’t matter. He got the bottom two buttons done up, didn’t bother with the rest, and then went about finding a clean pair of jeans. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

After a moment, Joe turned around. “Yeah, okay, fine, I’m into him. Now will you stop being so fucking weird about it?”

Tom opened his mouth, then shut it. Then went out into the hall, muttering to himself. When Joe was done changing, he found the other man waiting for him by the car. “Better,” Tom said, looking him over.

“Great,” Joe said, opening the driver’s door. “So let’s go.”

* * *

Steven was right at the turn-off, lounging against the old sign-post—with no sign on it now—for the motel. He’d really gone all out this time, with flames on his jeans and this shirt that was bright enough to be seen without headlights in the falling dark. And the shirt was silk, because Steven slid up against Joe’s face while trying to get into the back—Joe had a two-door—and ruffled and looked like something out of the women’s section, but it didn’t look out of place on Steven.

Soon as Steven was in the back, he was forward again, curling his arm around Joe’s seat to pat at Joe’s shoulder. “Thanks for the ride, man. Wasn’t looking forward to the hike into town, what with all the lions and tigers and bears running around.”

“Wolves and bears,” Joe corrected, pulling back onto the road. He misjudged the jump back onto the pavement a little and Steven’s hand jerked against his chest. “Yeah, it’s not a big deal.”

“Wouldn’t even have heard of this one if we weren’t bringing you,” Tom added. If Joe hadn’t been driving, he would’ve kicked the man, because there was trying to get attention and there was sounding fucking desperate. “So you see anything? You’re right up there in the woods.”

Steven laughed, right next to Joe’s ear. His arm was still draped around the seat so his hand hung down over Joe, fingers bumping and grazing Joe’s shirt. Sometimes going off the shirt onto Joe’s chest. “What, me? I get to bed early, sleep the sleep of the righteous and haven’t seen a damn thing.”

“But you go out during the day,” Joe said. “You really haven’t seen anything?”

“Been keeping my eyes peeled, boys, but nothing to report.” Sighing, Steven pushed himself up so he was resting his chin on the top of Joe’s head-rest. He was breathing into the back of Joe’s head. “Honestly, from what I’ve heard, I just wonder if the local dealers got hold of some really strong shit.”

“Yeah, speaking of, you want something?” Tom pulled out a baggie of weed and held it out for Steven.

Joe was checking the rearview just then and he saw Steven’s nostrils flare, then pinch. The man stared at the baggie like he didn’t quite know what it was—or maybe like he did, but like he didn’t know what he felt about it. Then he smiled and shook his head. “Nah, I loaded up before I got on down here. It’s a long night. Gotta pace myself.”

“Well, you need help with that, it’s still there,” Joe said. He pulled onto an off-ramp and then reached for the radio, which had just gone to commercial. After punching in his second-favorite station, he glanced at the man behind him. “So I guess if you haven’t had any problems with wild animals, you had time to clean up things?”

Steven looked blank. “Clean up things?”

“You told Tom and me that there was a lot of stuff around…” Joe started.

“Oh, right. Yeah, working on it.” Steven shook his head. “Still a lot of shit around. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been finding—truly fucking ancient trapper shit.”

“Pretty lucky you haven’t gotten hurt,” Tom said. He cranked down the window so he could blow smoke out it.

Joe poked Tom in the side, because it’d been about five goddamn minutes since Tom had rolled his, and finally the man started rolling him a joint. “Yeah, never knew you were a handy type. Like a bomb squad.”

“What? No, no, I just mark them. Don’t get rid of them,” Steven said. He shifted around again, his knuckles dragging over Joe’s shoulder. “I used to play back there when I was a kid, so I know the area real well. I just look for what’s different from what I remember.”

Tom handed Joe his joint, and then lit it for him. Right about then Steven moved back and Joe could hear him rolling down the window on his side. Weird for the guy to be turning down drugs, and if it was really a big deal, he should just say so. And Joe was going to tell Steven that when Steven stuck his head out the window and fucking _howled_. Then he pulled himself back inside, grinning at Joe in the rearview. “Fucking great night out, isn’t it? If there weren’t a bunch of idiots running around the place, I’d be right out there doing the wild thing. Just strip off my clothes and run naked under the moon.”

“Okay,” Tom said, sounding like he was trying not to giggle. “Jesus, okay.”

“So how long are you back in town?” Joe asked. He took another hit off the joint, then handed it to Tom for now. He didn’t want to mellow out too fast, when they had a tricky turn coming up and at least one police trap he knew of. And probably there were more cops out than usual, hoping to catch some hopped-up hunters. 

Steven looked up at the ceiling. “Oh, don’t know, really. Just going to hang out and see how it goes.”

“You’re not going back out with your band?” Joe said. Across the way Tom straightened up, and even through the pot haze Joe could tell that Tom was annoyed with him. Probably thought Joe was being an asshole again. “I thought you were—”

“Nah. We’re not really together.” Steven didn’t look upset from what Joe could tell. If anything, he looked more relaxed now that he’d gotten his weird screech out of his system. “We were down in New York, and this club made us an offer and they wanted to do it and I didn’t. So I came back up here. I was kind of burned out anyway. I’m just taking some time off, regrouping, clearing my head.”

Tom made a vaguely puzzled noise. “You didn’t want to take a what? The club wanted you to stay there?”

“No, it’s how it works is, a club will set you up, four or five nights a week, and it’s a reliable paycheck but I’ve done it, man, and it’s the quickest way to kill your future that I know of. You never get a chance to breathe, never get to work on your own stuff, end up just a slave to the money.” For a moment Steven was real, real bitter, almost biting off the words. He seemed to know it too, pulling his hand back, pushing his knees into Joe’s seat, and then flopping down with a sigh. “Well, anyway, some people go for it. I just wasn’t interested.”

“Fair enough,” Joe said. Didn’t really know what else to say—he hadn’t even had any idea that that was how clubs worked. A steady paycheck for just playing didn’t actually sound too bad to him, compared to the junky little part-time things he was doing right now, but he’d never even gotten near to playing in a club so he really had no idea.

They were coming up on the main part of town and Joe wanted to finish off his joint before he had to start looking for parking, but Tom wouldn’t give it to him. The other man kept acting like Joe was missing something, but Joe knew they were going in the right fucking direction so what else was there? He would’ve kicked Tom if he hadn’t needed his foot to drive.

“So what do you kids do for fun?” Steven asked. “I know you’ve got a boat, do you ever—”

“I’m _seventeen_ ,” Joe said.

Steven was quiet for a moment. Then he pushed himself up and craned his head around to look at Joe. “And a very impressive seventeen it is,” he drawled. “I would’ve pegged you for thirty, myself.”

“Fuck you.” Joe yanked the wheel around for the last turn, then just let the car coast towards the nearest empty spot at the curb. Out of the corner of his eye he could sense Tom making faces at him, but Tom could fuck off too. And give him that fucking joint first.

“Anyway,” Steven said after a long, long silence. “I appreciate the ride. Have fun at the party, all right?”

He was halfway out the window before Joe realized what the hell the man was doing. Joe stomped on the brakes, panicking, and Steven cursed and scrabbled at the roof of the car so hard that Joe could almost hear the metal screeching. Or maybe those were the brakes.

“Jesus _Christ_.” Steven didn’t stop what he was doing. He kept on going, twisting himself so he was crouched with his arms over the top of the car and one foot on the sill, like something from an action flick. “Listen, I’ll get my own ride home, all right?”

“Hey—” Joe started.

Steven jumped for it, and landed on his feet. He skipped once, swaying, and then skipped a second time, on purpose. The party was just ahead, people spilling out onto a porch decorated with Chinese lanterns, and a couple of them were shouting at Steven. He waved, still skipping, and by the time Joe had gotten out of the car, the man had disappeared into the house.

“Well, that went as planned,” Tom said, getting out. “Not. We were still moving and he had to get away _that bad_.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Joe slammed his door shut, then backed up against it. His hair got all up in his face and he shoved it out of the way, then pushed his hands down onto the car. “Oh, fuck.”

Tom came around the car slowly, cocking his head like he thought Joe was going to fly off and break something. He got past the side mirror, paused, and then offered Joe what was left of Joe’s joint. After a second, Joe took it, but he didn’t take a hit off it right away. He looked at it and breathed in and then spat out all that drug-free air, just fucking disgusted.

“It’s not that big,” Tom said, looking at the house. “Can’t take that long to find him.”

Joe snorted, and then he dragged on the joint. He stared at the place, at the people laughing and waving plastic cups on the porch. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I guess.”

* * *

It wasn’t a big house but it was crammed full of people, and right then way too many of them knew Joe. They kept stopping him and trying to talk, or at least shove a beer in his face. He did take a couple drinks but he was mostly trying to find Steven and carrying around a cup slowed him down.

He felt like an idiot. He never really liked doing anything that he wouldn’t normally do, and yeah, he’d clean his car and change his clothes, but he usually did that because he felt like it, not because he was thinking about whether somebody else would get into it. And he’d gone through the trouble and gotten nothing but a bunch of shit for it, and now he felt like he’d gotten taken for a ride instead of giving one, and he just really fucking hated feeling like an idiot.

And he couldn’t find Steven. Sometimes he thought he heard the man whooping or laughing, having fun with some other jackass, but by the time he got there, Steven wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He did know the guy was still in the building because Tom was hanging out front, keeping an eye on the door, and he wasn’t too thrilled with Tom either, come to think of it. Tom’s bright ideas about what Joe should do and what Joe wanted to do, and then not being any help at all in the car either, making Joe do all the goddamn work, and fuck, Joe needed another joint.

Tom still had the weed. Joe cursed and kicked the wall, and got told to just chill already by some guy in a prep-college jacket. For a second Joe thought about punching him in his smug mouth. Then he just pulled himself back and went to go find Tom. Getting into a fight wasn’t going to help him get stoned any faster, and getting stoned probably was the only thing that’d make him feel better right now.

So Joe headed for what he thought was the front door, but he must have gotten mixed up at some point, because he ended up in the backyard. Some girls shooting beers clumped up between him and the door the moment he stepped through it, shrieking and spraying foam all over the place, so Joe didn’t have any choice but to hop down the front steps and into the yard. They’d put up lanterns here too, going out to this low stone wall that marked the end of the property, and here and there people were trying to use the bushes for different activities. One bush had a really bright, really familiar splotch on it.

Steven and some girl were making out behind it. Joe picked Steven’s shirt off the bush, but the girl was still pretty much dressed, although from what she was giggling, that was because she wanted to make Steven work a little more for it. Then she saw Joe and jerked back. “Hey!” she snapped. “Taken, man. Get your own.”

“What?” Steven said. Then he saw Joe. He blinked hard, then sighed. “What _is_ it with you and…”

He stiffened up and looked away, but Joe wasn’t really paying attention to that because something had just fucking _growled_. It sounded pretty close. They were up near the stone wall but the lanterns didn’t really give off much light and Joe couldn’t make out much more than shadows after about fifteen feet. The woods started maybe another thirty feet after that.

The growl came again, from the left, and other people were hearing it now too. Some of them were coming down to the wall, while others were yelling to get back inside. Joe just kept squinting at the dark, just wanting to know where the fuck it was coming from, and then somebody grabbed him by the arm. Steven, hauling him back towards the porch. Also trying to pull something out of Joe’s hand, and Joe automatically jerked it away.

“Okay, fine, you like it that much, you can have it, you fucking asshole,” Steven muttered. He yanked at Joe’s arm again, then swore and got a fistful of Joe’s shirt at the back, pulling off the buttons as he dragged Joe along. “Come on, damn it. That’s—”

“Oh, _shit_.” Joe stared at the huge dark shape that’d suddenly appeared on the stone wall. “What the hell is that?”

Steven hit him on the head. That fucker—Joe spun around, then heard the growl, way closer, way louder, way more shit-yourself, and his legs suddenly took off by themselves. Caught him by surprise and he lost his balance and would’ve fallen on his face if Steven hadn’t pulled him back up.

They fucking ran for the porch, but a screaming girl cut in front of them and made them veer off. Joe heard a crash and felt the ground under his feet shake a little, that thing going from the wall on their left to somewhere on their right, and nearly fell over again trying to change directions. He just went the opposite way from the growling.

Away from the porch. A couple steps in, Joe realized what he’d done, but Steven—still with him—smacked his head again. “Around! Around!” Steven was yelling. “Don’t fucking stop!”

So Joe ran around the damn house. He could hear whatever it was, the bear, wolf, just sounded fucking loud and angry, following them, but it was a little bit slower. Not much. Just enough for him to hear his fucking heart trying to beat out through his ears.

“No, over—” Steven was still shoving him around. 

He made Joe go right, and for a second Joe saw the front porch with lots of pale faces floating in its light—there was a bang and a whistling noise, and Joe shied away. Somewhere people were screaming to shoot, not to shoot, and he didn’t even know where he was fucking going and then Steven had his arm again and was dragging him into something. Joe finally did fall onto his face and didn’t let that stop him from clawing forward till he hit something that stopped him.

“No, keep it fucking shut,” Steven hissed at him, and Joe looked up and saw a car door. Then heard Steven closing the other one, and slamming the locks. “Jesus. Jesus Christ. Where are your keys?”

“What?” Joe twisted around, got his knee tangled with Steven for a second and slipped off the seat into the footspace. “What?”

Steven swore again and grabbed him, and then was—was just feeling him up. Hands all over the place, pushing and scratching and getting into Joe’s clothes and out of them and then Steven was crouched on the edge of the seat with his legs and arms pulled in, glaring at Joe like some demented cat. “Where. Are. Your. Keys?”

That was when Joe realized they were in his car. He put his hand down, then pulled it up empty. “Oh, shit, maybe I dropped them.”

For a second Steven stared at him. Then Steven hung his head over the seat and moaned. “Of-fucking-course. Doors weren’t even locked. You didn’t lock them. You dropped your fucking keys instead of locking—”

“You fucking jumped out the window!” Joe snapped.

Somebody shot at them and Steven shouted and then something big barged into the back end of the car. It rocked it off one wheel, then let the car drop so Joe’s teeth rattled and Steven fell onto Joe’s knees. Steven’s arm whacked Joe on the jaw and Joe pushed at him, then flinched as another shot rang out.

“They’re gonna hit _us_ ,” Steven muttered. “Jesus Christ, I get all the way back here and get ninety percent to working this shit out and—”

He was moving, too. Knocking into Joe, throwing out joints, nearly breaking Joe’s nose, and then Joe was dodging Steven’s foot when he got what Steven was trying to do. He put his hands under Steven’s foot and shoved up, and then twisted around to stare through the crack between the front seats at Steven squirming around under the wheel. “What are you doing?”

“So fucking glad I always—” couple metal flashes, some _snick_ noises barely audible over all the yelling and snarling outside, and then Steven whooped “—there we go, baby!”

The car leaped forward. There were a couple crazy seconds where Steven still had his head under the wheel and Joe was dead fucking certain they were going to crash and die, and then Steven got up into the seat to drive, and—it didn’t get any better. Joe got his fucking ass into shotgun, trying not to look out the windows, and then got hold of Steven’s arm and jerked it till they were at least driving in a straight line.

“You hotwired my car,” Joe said.

Steven shrugged. “Had to.”

Joe looked out the windshield, then ducked his head as they whizzed down an alley barely big enough for the car. “What the fuck _was_ that?”

“Oh.” Steven flinched. “Um—”

The end of the alley was clear, and then it wasn’t. Joe felt his spine smash into the back of the seat as Steven hit the brakes, then nearly broke his arms trying to keep off the dash as Steven slammed into reverse. They did a fucking spin and then were going off again when they—weren’t.

“You broke my car!” Joe said, still bouncing around in the seat.

Steven snapped something at him, then went at him, and Joe had one arm up when he realized Steven wasn’t trying to hit him, but just wanted to get over him and at the door on his side. Joe twisted around and got Steven’s leg for a second, just long enough to keep Steven from bolting out the fucking _door_ he’d just opened when there was some fucking _thing_ after him, and then Steven kicked him in the shoulder.

He let go. Steven went out. A big shadow rose up from the left and took a flying leap at Steven.

Joe forgot about the fucking bootprint in his shoulder and scrambled out of the car. He grabbed onto the door for balance, then looked over it and on the other side he saw fur, he heard snarling, he felt fighting. He didn’t see Steven. Then something hooked under the door and got his leg, and he was suddenly hanging onto the door for his fucking life.

His foot got dragged out from under him, but he held onto the door long enough to get his other foot back down and that was when his leg fucking _burned_. Joe inhaled, saw the world spin and then fell over onto his back.

The thing stopped pulling for a second. Joe’s other leg was still free, and he just lifted it and slammed his foot into the door. That went forward a couple inches, hit something damn hard, and then whatever had his leg let go and Joe was hauling himself backwards by his fingernails. He could feel blood running under his jeans and he was so fucking glad to see that his foot was still attached that he actually stopped pulling himself along the ground. That was when the wolf rolled out from behind the door.

Joe froze, but the wolf wasn’t even looking at him. It was facing the other way, tongue out, panting like hell. The wolf twitched a couple times, like it wanted up but couldn’t really do it, and then did this _twist_ and _snake_ and Steven was lying there. He had his head on the ground, his eyes closed, and then he took a deep, deep breath and picked up his head and saw Joe.

“Oh.” Steven stared at Joe. His eyes were the size of eggs. “Oh, fuck.”

“Oh, fuck,” said a third person, from behind the car door, and Steven jumped. Then his eyes narrowed and his lips went thin and tight. He turned around, pulled his foot up, and kicked whoever it was.

For a second Steven watched them. They didn’t do anything, so he apparently figured it was fine to get up and go over to Joe. He started to say something, then saw Joe’s leg, and that was when Joe looked at it too. The torn jeans were in the way so Joe pulled them up and checked out the slash—pretty long, bloody, but it didn’t look too deep. He could move all his toes fine.

“Okay. Okay.” Steven pushed his hands over his face. “Okay. So first of all, I didn’t do that.”

Joe sat up and pulled in his leg so he could get a better look. A little more blood welled up, but it actually looked like it was already clotting up.

“Second, you…we’re…” Steven gestured a couple times at Joe’s leg, then put his hands back over his face. “Oh, fuck.”

“Who the fuck was that?” Joe finally said, pointing behind Steven.

When Steven turned, a couple things happened. A car came screaming up the road behind him, making Steven almost turn back, and then this black thing heaved up behind the door, knocking it into Steven so he fell back into the car. Then it took off down the road. The other car’s headlights caught it just long enough for Joe to get four feet, fur, some kind of long tail.

“Joe?” Tom and a bunch of other people. “Joe! Steven! You there?”

Steven pulled himself out of the car. He looked at Joe, dead serious. “We need to talk about this but not with them, okay?”

Joe looked at Steven, then at his leg. Then down the road. Then he just gave up and put his head against the car. “Yeah, fine.”

* * *

It took a while to get away. The leg finally gave them an excuse to go to the nearest urgent-care clinic—Steven nixed a hospital, citing cop concerns—but once they got there, the doctor didn’t even think Joe needed stitches. He just cleaned out the cut, taped some gauze over it, and got interested in some bruises on the side of Steven’s face. Stopped being interested when Steven sassed him, and let them go out to get a ride with Tom, since Joe’s car would have to wait for the morning to get towed. Plus Tom still had the weed.

“So I guess it’s a wolf,” Tom said, after a good ten minutes of silence. “Don’t we have to worry about rabies? You need a shot, right? I know we don’t want cops but I think we could’ve told them it was a wolf instead of that stupid kitchen accident story.”

Joe and Steven had gotten in opposite ends of the back seat. Steven was slumped in the corner, way down, like he was trying to avoid attention for once. He moved when Tom spoke, then sighed and pushed himself up. “Okay,” he said. “So—”

“There were two of you,” Joe said. He watched Steven’s face contort through about fifty different expressions. “Right?”

“Yeah.” After another moment, Steven let himself slide back into the corner. “Yeah. Ex-bandmate.”

Tom glanced back at them. “What are you talking about?”

Joe pointed at Steven. “He turned into a wolf.”

“God, you’re stoned,” Tom said, while Steven breathed in high and sharp like somebody had punched him in the kidneys. “I knew I should’ve cut you off earlier. You’re lucky that doctor didn’t care.”

“He’s not gonna tell,” Joe told Steven. “This was all his idea anyway. He had plans and stuff, and was telling me what to do, and he’s not going to tell because then somebody else is going to get you.”

“You really are stoned,” Steven said, while Tom choked. He had found an old flannel shirt of Joe’s in the trunk while they were at the clinic and had claimed it since Joe had dropped his shirt somewhere, probably with those fucking keys, and now was picking the stitches out of its cuff. “Oh, this is going to be great. Okay. Okay, so…well, there’s pot and booze, I know that. Anything else?”

Joe frowned at him, then shifted uncomfortably. He was starting to get a little lightheaded, he realized. Maybe he was coming off the pot, except then Tom hit a pothole and they bounced, and after that the car stopped but Joe’s stomach kept bouncing. He shifted again, pushing his arm down over his belly. “Why?”

“You like this car?” Steven said to Tom. “You might want to pull over.”

Tom had just recovered from his choking and wasn’t looking real happy with either of them. “Why? Jesus, isn’t one car totaled enough?”

“Yeah, well, that’s the point, and…okay, fucking _pull over_ ,” Steven snapped.

Tom opened his mouth and Steven jerked his chin at Joe. After a look that way, Tom swore and pulled over, and Joe got his head out the door just in time to throw up everything he’d ever eaten. He hung onto the door for a couple seconds, then gingerly maneuvered his feet past the vomit and stumbled around it to the grass. Then he got down on his knees and threw up again.

“Oh, man,” Tom said. “Is this the rabies? We really should get him back.”

“It’s not _rabies_ ,” Steven said, voice dipping in frustration.

Joe stayed down on his hands and knees. He breathed in, and his head felt a little better, and he was going to get up when everything went cock-eyed and then—weird, so weird, shadows were different and colors were different and he heard things and smelled things and felt things claws down into the ground thousand different things had been around here pissed here shat here marked here still moving around here in the trees he could hear claws in the treetops—normal. Sort of. His head hurt.

“ _Jesus_.” Tom sounded like he’d just gotten socked in the balls.

“I told you.” Steven was standing right over Joe. “Not rabies. Look, what else did you have? Because it’s about to all come up and out.”

“Fuck you,” Joe managed, and then, amazingly, got something more to come up out of his throat. “Oh, God, this is fucking bad.”

For some reason Steven was still standing over him. “It’s not going to be that much longer,” he said. “You changed already. Man, when this happened to me, I was sick for days. Of course, I’d just downed about half a fucking drugstore…”

Joe wanted to say something, but he just threw up instead. Something warm touched his back, then pulled away.

“Look, just…when he’s done, we’ll go to my place,” Steven said. “Then we can talk about this.”

* * *

The last thing Joe actually wanted to do when they got to Steven’s place was talk about it, even if he knew he really had to. But his throat was raw as hell and still tasted like bile, and his head kind of spun whenever he moved it, and his one leg was real fucking sore. It didn’t help when he tugged up part of the gauze and saw that the actual cut was almost gone.

“So what gets a person high isn’t what gets a wolf high, or at least, how much you take isn’t the same or something like that. So you get two things happening. It doesn’t work, or it does, but only for about two seconds before the other side just fucking doesn’t want it and makes you give it up,” Steven was saying. He puttered around on the stove, taking off a kettle and measuring out coffee grinds and just being really weird. It was like watching one of those old shows from the fifties with the wife making dinner, except Joe’s flannel shirt made Steven look kind of like a hick. “Coffee?”

Joe didn’t really want to put anything into his stomach right now, not even the water Tom kept saying he should drink, but he let Steven put a mug on the table in front of him. “So were those really raisins?”

Tom shot him one of those looks, like that was the wrong question when Jesus, who knew what the right question for this shit was. Steven raised his brows, then snorted and grinned into the mug he was holding two-handed. “Nope. Thanks for getting your ass out of there, by the way. I kept it down about two minutes after you left.”

“Why would you do that?” Joe asked.

“Well, to get you to stop fucking sneaking around this place,” Steven said. He cocked his head, looking from Tom to Joe because Joe had just shot Tom a look back, and then shook his head and cleared his throat. “Okay. So…what happened was, my band had this real shit gig, everything going wrong, sound, amps, fucking lazy-ass keyboard guy, the works. And afterward we were pissed off so we went to get high, and it’s a little fuzzy but I think we got into an argument with this other guy who was looking to score. We didn’t want him cleaning out the dealer before we were done, but he was…nasty. And there was this fight, and three of us got bites or scratches and after that I thought I’d better just get this figured out first.”

“Wait, wait, so what is _this_?” Tom said. “Joe turned into a wolf!”

Steven looked at him like he was an idiot. “Yep.”

“But…” Tom shifted around on the couch “…wait, so you do too?”

“Yeah. Yeah, me and that asshole back there who used to be my guitarist, but who’s just being a fucking bastard about all this, like it was even my idea to go there. It was _his_ dealer,” Steven said. He drank some coffee, rubbed his mouth with his hand, and then sighed and sat back in his chair. “I have no idea about the bear.”

Joe and Tom stared at him. “That’s…is that actually a bear?” Joe finally said.

“Well, I haven’t really been trying to walk up and introduce myself,” Steven muttered. “Little busy holing up here trying to just get a grip on _me_.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Tom said. He sat for another second, then got up so suddenly he knocked the table with his knee. He kept going like he hadn’t noticed, stepping into the kitchen. “Oh, my God.”

Steven had started to get up too, but he stopped when Joe waved at him. “He’s just going to finish off his pot,” Joe said. He pushed his hands into his legs, then put them between his knees. Then pulled them out. His head didn’t feel great but he had to admit that it wasn’t really…it wasn’t bad-trip bad at this point. It was different from that, a little like he was tired but he was thinking a lot more clearly, and he was starting to think that some of the weirdness was him just not being used to that. “So…is this permanent?”

“Well, three months so far,” Steven said, shrugging. He glanced at the kitchen, then leaned back enough to get a decent look at whatever Tom was doing. Then he sighed again and looked at Joe. “It’s a real weird way to get clean. I don’t think I’ve gone this long without a high since I was what, fifteen.”

“That wasn’t that long ago. You’re what, twenty? If even?” Joe said. “Jesus, I’m gonna think you’re thirty, if you’re going to talk like that.”

Steven let out this little exhale, like he couldn’t quite believe Joe and like he couldn’t quite swallow down the urge to hit Joe. Then he snorted and shook his head. “Okay, you know what? I’ve been trying really, really hard to just—be a good person here, and not go off and murder everybody. I sat my ass down, studied up, scared off anybody who came poking around instead of hurting them and now I’m helping you out, or at least trying and you’re being a fucking _dick_. What is your problem? What do you want from me, anyway?”

“I just wanted to ask you if you would sing in my band,” Joe snapped. Then he hissed and put his head down and put his elbows up on his knees, and pushed his face into his hands. He was so…fucked. And then this shit, with turning into wolves and never getting high again, and he knew Steven was staring at him. He could feel it on the top of his head.

He finally looked up just because sitting there and pretending it wasn’t happening was a little more stupid than sitting there and admitting that it was and that this was all fucked. “Oh, really?” Steven said. He was staring at Joe, but not really like he was looking down at Joe. He just looked confused. “Honestly, I thought you were trying to hook up with me.”

“Well, maybe that too.” Then Joe grimaced and pushed his face into his right hand. He suddenly wished he had his guitar. “Shit. But the band…I really did…”

“What do you play?” And Steven had moved, coming around the table to plop down right next to Joe on the couch. He leaned out so he could look around Joe’s hand into Joe’s face. “Who else is in it?”

“Guitar.” Joe moved his feet and slid his knee out from under his elbow without meaning to, and had to use both hands to keep his head from going into the table. “I mean, that’s what I play. And I was singing, but it’s not really what I do, you know, so…Tom, he plays bass, and we had a drummer but he fucked off and—”

Steven kissed him. Joe jerked back and Steven lifted his brows. “What?”

“You—just—but we’re fucking _werewolves_ ,” Joe finally said.

“We can’t get _high_ ,” Steven said, rolling his eyes. “We can still fuck.”

“I’m fucking freaking _out_ right now,” Joe said.

“And how’s that working out for you?” Steven asked. He pushed at the side of his head like he was getting a migraine. “Look, it happened, can’t change it, it’s not actually that bad. You had a pretty easy time too, considering you weren’t in the middle of fucking Manhattan and didn’t have to figure out how to change back while getting chased by fucking crackhead—”

Joe grabbed Steven’s head and kissed him. Not really because he wanted to, but because Steven was being such a fucking asshole and this was just fucking _weird_ , and he just wasn’t really thinking too much.

So he didn’t really mean it. But Steven kissed him back, and his tongue went in Joe’s mouth and then somehow they were crawling all over each other on that end of the couch. Steven kept dropping, like he was trying to sneak out of it, and that pissed Joe off even more so he followed the guy all the fucking way down, and ended up sprawled on top of Steven. He stuck his hand down to try and hold himself up, but Steven rolled onto it, dragging Joe forward instead. Their mouths unlocked and Joe suddenly realized he had to breathe pretty bad.

He gasped and Steven’s mouth ran down his jaw to his neck without lifting once, sucking and _sucking_ , and Joe had obviously messed around before but never with somebody who was—who really—he’d never actually had a fucking hickey before, and if he was lucky and Steven wasn’t actually biting him, he was going to find out now. And it felt really fucking good. Joe gasped again, twisting, and Steven did some kind of shimmying thing, right up against Joe, from mouth down to maybe their knees, and it felt like somebody had melted Joe from inside-out.

Steven got his leg wound around Joe’s waist, working his mouth back up along Joe’s jaw, and Joe had put his hand up inside Steven’s shirt at some point he didn’t remember, and they really didn’t have the fucking room but they rolled halfway over. More of Joe’s arm stuck under Steven and he wasted a lot of time trying to get it out while Steven was—getting into his jeans, right, that was the fly going, and that was really going for it, Joe thought. Wasting another second when he really could be catching up with Steven there, because Steven was making this noise now, like a muffled laugh, like he was so goddamn amused that Joe was perpetually behind the curve and like Joe was going to stand for that.

Joe remembered he had another arm and got his hand into Steven’s hair, pulling the man’s head around, and then he pushed it back into the couch and followed, kissing hard, and Steven stopped making that laughing noise and started making a lower, rougher noise, twisting, not trying to get _away_.

“Oh, Jesus,” Tom said.

Steven’s leg saved Joe from falling off the couch. Then Steven hitched himself up, leaving a little more room for Joe to worm back onto the cushions, and glared at something behind Joe. “What _now_? God, you know, if it’s not him walking in on my thing—”

“I know her,” Joe said. “She’s down for anybody who’ll get her a drink.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Tom said again. From the sound of it, he was tossing himself into the chair Steven had vacated. “Okay. Look. What the hell?”

Joe had been trying to get around to see Tom, but when Steven moved he gave up on that and looked back. Steven lifted one brow, then unwound his leg from Joe and somehow pulled it around and folded it so he was sitting, that leg pulled to his chest, the other one jamming its knee into Joe’s stomach. “All I wanted to do tonight was get laid.”

“You turned Joe into a fucking werewolf!” Tom snapped.

The light snapped in Steven’s eyes. “I did not! You fucking pothead, I fucking—that was Peter, and that wouldn’t have happened if your goddamn friend wasn’t fucking obsessed with me.”

“I’m not obsessed,” Joe muttered, yanking his legs over the couch. He got hold of the arm and pushed himself up so his back was to Steven. Tom glanced at him, then flinched away and Joe bit his tongue and stuck his arm over his open fly. “I’m just—I just wanted to ask you a fucking question, you asshole.”

“Actually, you kind of are.” Tom cautiously turned his head, then heaved a sigh and flopped further into the chair, staring at Joe and Steven. “Obsessed. You know. With him.”

“Well, so are you,” Joe snapped. “You’re the one who made a fucking point of telling me he was back in town.”

Tom was going to say something to that, but just then something shoved Joe in the back and nearly off the couch: Steven’s knee, sliding across Joe as the other man irritably got to his feet. “And I’m supposed to be the weird one,” he said under his breath, heading for the kitchen. “And I can’t get high, and I have these two idiots smoking weed all over the place, and I really, really, _really_ wish I was high, and…”

For a second Joe sat there and squeezed the cushions. Then he got up, and then he grabbed at his goddamn jeans. He did up the fly while going after Steven, who was—putting away dishes. There was this old-fashioned wooden rack by the sink, full of them, and Steven was angrily yanking dishes and cups out of it.

“Hey,” Joe said. Then he just barely ducked a mug that was coming for his face. “Jesus, hey!”

The mug kept going in a straight line, and went into a cupboard behind Joe. Then Steven went back to the rack for another one. “What.”

Joe made himself take a couple breaths. “Look. This…thing. How bad is it?”

Steven stood there with his back to Joe, holding a plate a couple inches above the rack. The plate dipped, then rose, but Steven just spun it between his hands. “Well, what’s bad to you?” he finally said. He sounded tired. “I’m not an expert, okay? I just holed up here till I figured out a couple things.”

“Like what?” Joe took a step forward, and when Steven didn’t move, went around to where he could see the man’s face.

“Like…well, you don’t want to eat people. I guess you could if you wanted to, but cannibalism’s not really my thing. And that whole silver thing, I think that’s a bunch of Hollywood bullshit.” Steven flicked a spoon in the rack. It was metal, maybe silver—it looked like one of those antique ones. Then he sighed and reached up to put the plate in the cabinet in front of his head. “I already told you about the drug thing, and the…oh, so there’s kind of a moon connection, but it’s more like, this urge. It’s not like you have to change when the moon’s full but…it feels pretty good if you do.”

“Okay,” Joe said. He leaned against the counter. “Well, what about…you know, the other stuff wolves eat?”

“Yeah, that, well, you do want to eat them. And I admit that I do, but hey, it’s the natural way of life, right?” Steven shrugged, giving Joe one of those wide-eyed looks of his, like he would have no idea what anybody could find wrong in that. “I was an eat what you kill guy before this anyway, so really, just means you don’t have to carry so much gear around.”

Joe wasn’t going for that look, but he was trying to have a conversation and not to get into another fight, so he just picked at his bracelet. “That doesn’t get—nasty or anything, when you change back?”

“No, not that I…well, I had a little constipation a couple times, but that could’ve just been what was left of the speed,” Steven said, tilting his head. He mused at the ceiling some more, then looked at Joe. “What? Look, I just wanted to figure out if I really couldn’t do any kind of drug. And you really can’t. I mean, aspirin or something like that’s okay if you don’t change before it wears off, but anything stronger and ech.”

He made a dramatic puking gesture with two fingers arcing down from his mouth and Joe surprised himself by smiling at it. Steven blinked hard, then smiled back. It wasn’t his usual grin, not as big, not as bright, so Joe had a chance to see what was going on behind it.

“So what’s this whole thing with your old bandmates coming after you? Is that some wolf vengeance thing, or just a fight?” Tom gave them an unusually toothy grin from the doorway. “I admit that I’m way high right now, and it’s really helping out with the whole shock factor. But I’m not comatose, or deaf, and yeah, honestly, we should figure this out _at least_ before you go make out again.”

“I can’t get stoned anymore,” Joe said, looking at Tom. “Seriously?”

Steven sighed mournfully. “Nope.” He reached for another dish, then shook his head. “Also, no, it’s not a wolf thing. It’s just a Peter is an asshole thing.”

“Why’s he an asshole?” Then Joe put up his hand. “No, I mean, why’s he being an asshole to _you_?”

“Okay. So _maybe_ I left without mentioning it to the other guys, and _maybe_ they were thinking that we were doing this club gig after all. Since because we turn into wolves, it’s somehow a good reason to just give up on the dream and sell out and all that shit,” Steven said. He started out careful and slow, but then he’d started waving his hands and it got so violent that it actually turned him around to face them. “Seriously? Seriously? Just because I have this little problem doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying to make it as an actual fucking band with my own actual fucking music.”

“So Joe’s a werewolf now because your band’s mad you left them?” Tom said.

Steven opened his mouth, then shut it. Then opened it again, lifting one hand with his index finger up like he was going to scold them. Then he shut his mouth again and put his hand down. He looked over at Joe, and for once he wasn’t finding anything about Joe funny. He actually looked a little upset.

“He showed up just a couple days ago,” Steven finally said. “I knew he was around, but I didn’t really want to talk to him, so…and I didn’t think he was going to be so fucking dumb as to jump me at a party.”

Joe nodded. It was a pretty stupid thing to do. “So since I’m a werewolf now, I can kick this guy’s ass, right?”

Steven stared at him like that made absolutely no sense, and for long enough that this obviously didn’t happen to Steven too often. Which made Joe kind of, well, impressed with himself, which was also on the stupid side, to be honest, but which he couldn’t exactly help.

“We’re all being really calm about this,” Tom said. “Of course I’m stoned, but…”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? Go nuts? Like that’s going to help,” Joe muttered. He could see Steven starting to get amused at them again and wasn’t too thrilled with Tom for triggering that. “Anyway, for all I know, I’d go wolf in the middle of it and—”

“Oh, my God, it’s not like you’re the Incredible Hulk here,” Steven said, rolling his eyes. Then he paused. He gave Joe this look, which started at Joe’s face and was there kind of long, and Joe was going to ask what the hell it was about when it dropped down the rest of him. And it was…a lot less cheesy than Joe would’ve expected. “Though you being kind of a jerk too and following me around aside, you’re already making a way better wolf than those morons.”

“I wasn’t _following_ you,” Joe said. “I told you, I—”

Tom raised his hand. “Listen, I’m pretty invested in seeing Joe actually doing something about his obsessions for once, like following you, but first, can we just talk about the bear?”

“The bear?” Steven said.

“Yeah, wasn’t there a bear?” Tom said. “Come on. I’m not _that_ baked.”

* * *

Steven swore up and down that he didn’t know a damn thing about the bear, except that he’d smelled it a couple times and it wasn’t a normal bear. He stuck to that no matter how Tom asked the question, and Tom asked it enough times and different ways that Joe had to admit that his friend was being annoying. Weed did that to Tom sometimes, just making him totally oblivious to whatever was coming out of the other person’s mouth.

All considering, Steven was pretty good about it, but he also clearly didn’t want to spend the whole night on it. Neither did Joe, since frankly, the bear could be whatever it wanted to be and he didn’t give a shit so long as it didn’t get in his way. And since it wasn’t, he had a couple other things he wanted to deal with first. So he talked Tom into being hungry—not that hard—and then talked Steven into feeding him, or at least letting Joe poke through Steven’s fridge to find something to feed Tom. By then Tom was starting to hit the dozy stage and was getting okay with just sacking out on Steven’s couch with some food.

“I still think we need to talk about this some more,” Tom was mumbling. His head went down on the back of the couch and he stared glassy-eyed at the ceiling. “Whoa. This is weird.”

“I know,” Steven sighed, looking longingly at Tom. “Never really know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

He meant the weed, Joe realized, and was both glad and annoyed that he’d figured that out. Then Joe frowned and turned around. “Where are you going?”

Steven didn’t say anything, but he flapped his hand around the door he’d just opened, which Joe took to mean follow him. Joe did and walked into a bedroom. It had a bed, anyway—plenty of other things too, in every kind of color under the sun except dull, and his eyes needed a second to adjust.

“Don’t step on my skull,” Steven said.

Joe looked down, then picked up the deer skull and over to where Steven was crouched down over something. That aside, the room was actually really neat and ordered, if crammed full. There was the bed taking up one whole wall and then parts of a drum set stacked up against the next wall over, and a dresser with candles and incense sticks and harmonicas. A lot of harmonicas. Some of them looked antique, with pearly sides and kind of grimy metal trimmings, and Joe was reaching for one when something tugged at his wrist.

Steven wanted him to move over. There wasn’t any room, since Steven had all the space between the dresser and the bed, but Steven pulled again before Joe could step out and Joe ended up sitting down hard on the bed. He poked the skull’s antlers into his knee on the way down, pretty hard, and almost tossed it into the wall. Instead he tossed it onto the other end of the bed.

“Hey, careful.” Steven got the skull and put what he was looking at, which was a map, on Joe’s lap, and crawled over to put the skull back where Joe had found it. Then he turned around and began poking at the map with a pen, and without taking it out of Joe’s lap. “Okay, I think I’m caught up now.”

“What are you doing?” Joe started to lift the map and Steven shoved it back down. He stared at the top of Steven’s head, then jerked his legs out from under the map and scooted sideways.

Whatever Steven was drawing on the map was pretty damn interesting, since all he did was mutter irritably and stick his elbow at where he thought Joe’s knee was. He was wrong by about two inches, and then he leaned out of the way when Joe twisted around to look at the marks he was making.

“These are where people’ve seen the bear,” Steven said. He made the pen disappear and then sat up on his knees so he could smooth down the map with his hands. “Notice that they’re all clustered over there. As in not here.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Joe waited for Steven to say something else. “So?”

“So, I don’t think we have to worry about it,” Steven sighed. “Now, Peter, on the other hand…although maybe getting shot at would’ve gotten his ass straightened out. Because honestly, we weren’t that great.”

He sighed again and stared at the map. After a moment, he got off his knees and folded one leg up so he could rest his chin on it, still staring at the map. It couldn’t have been that interesting, and then Joe shifted his weight and bumped a corner of it, and Steven didn’t even blink. Joe started to say something, probably a stupid question about Steven’s band, and then decided he really didn’t give a shit. Whatever had actually happened to it, they obviously weren’t going to get back together, and this Peter was a fucking asshole just for charging a bunch of uninvolved people at a party and…doing whatever this was to Joe.

Joe almost asked Steven right then whether he really had gotten all of the pot out of his system, because yeah, he was being kind of calm about this. And anyway, you smoked pot so how it was supposed to come out by throwing up over and over again didn’t really make sense, and…well, it all didn’t make that much sense. But at least some of it obviously was true, and it’d been a couple hours and Joe was still around and still doing things like wishing he knew what to say. And, considering that, he probably was completely sober because that was one thing pot and booze definitely helped with.

“Anyway, you called and nobody’s going to come look for you or Tom, right?” Steven finally said. He drew a deep breath, then gave himself a shivering twist, and then looked up at Joe. “Because I wasn’t lying about those traps. They’re a bitch to get around at night, even for me.”

“Yeah, no, I told them we were staying over at this other guy’s house.” A short laugh slipped out of Joe, and damned if he knew where it’d come from. “I just hope my car doesn’t hit the news. That’d fuck things up a little.”

Steven nodded. “Know what you mean, absolutely. Happened to me and a couple friends when we were younger.”

It sounded like he had another story coming, but he didn’t keep going. He was being really quiet in between comments, too—real quiet, just sitting there, maybe fiddling with his shoes once in a while but otherwise not really doing anything. He maybe had no idea what to do either.

“I don’t think Peter’s going to swing by again,” Steven finally said. “I mean, maybe in the morning, but he was always kind of a blow up in your face, then run off for a couple days type. Which made getting him for rehearsals a pain, and why he’s suddenly decided to care so much is beyond me.”

Joe shrugged, since he didn’t know the guy except for his asshole acts tonight and couldn’t really say anything. He glanced at the door, wondering if Tom had fallen asleep yet, and he must have moved his foot too because something hit his heel. Steven looked down, then bent over and pulled out the thing from under the bed. Turned out to be a guitar.

A real fucked-looking one, the finish nearly completely gone and the neck warped like it was trying to warp around Joe’s wrist. Then he realized he’d grabbed it before Steven had let go of it, and he was trying to figure out what to tell Steven when Steven just pushed it onto his lap.

“I found that in one of the other cabins today. You wouldn’t believe what people leave behind.” Steven got off the floor and got the map off the bed, then sat down by Joe. He folded up the map, careful to get all the creases right, and then slipped it in between the tom drums by the foot of the bed. “No strings. I probably need to bag a couple more rabbits for those. Just blew a wad of cash at the record store.”

“Can you even get strings on this?” Joe muttered. He turned the guitar around by the neck, then flicked the body. It sounded like it looked, bent and sour and kind of eerie. “So you play?” 

“I know my way around it,” Steven said, shrugging. “I’m more of an appreciative listener. Since God knows it’s hard to find anybody who really fucking cares to learn it.”

Joe put the guitar down next to him, opposite side from Steven. “So Peter wasn’t great?”

“He was—I mean, guy is _decent_ , but he’s never going to be a real guitar god, if you know what I mean.” Steven bounced on the bed a couple times, then let himself hunch over. “Damn it. You have no idea how fucking fed up I am with bands that just want to go right here, where the easy times are, and don’t want to really get out there and make it. And then there’s this whole wolf thing. That’s going to be hard to explain to the next band.”

“You’ve been acting like it’s not that big a deal,” Joe said.

“Yeah, well, it’s not really one for _me_ , the way I see it, but I’m not stupid. I mean, when you get done being all fucking stoned, you’re probably going to freak out too,” Steven snapped. “Just do me a favor and if you got a fucking problem, bring it up with me and don’t be like Peter.”

Joe laughed. “Yeah, all right. Seeing as I’m not him, that’s not going to be hard.”

Steven rounded on him, like that was an insult, and Joe just—kissed him. Tried to. It was more of a mash of mouths, and then Joe lost his balance and went sideways and had to catch himself on his arm. He pushed himself back and Steven was looking at him like the guy didn’t quite get it, but…Steven leaned in, an inch or so, and stopped, and Joe pushed up and it still wasn’t really a kiss, just their mouths touching, but at least they weren’t busting each other’s lips.

The way Joe was leaning on his arm was really awkward so he moved up, except maybe Steven thought he was going in some other direction because Steven sucked in his breath, air whistling right past Joe’s mouth, and then made this startled noise in his throat when Joe pushed forward again. He shifted too, up a little, and that was when they were actually kissing.

It was—it was good. The other time, back on the couch, that had been over so quick Joe hadn’t really had time to even know what they were doing until it was over. This time neither of them were really trying to rush anywhere, and actually Steven still seemed a little surprised that they were even doing it. His fingers brushed over Joe’s hair, then reappeared by Joe’s hip, and then were fluttering somewhere around Joe’s ribs when Joe finally grabbed them and shoved them down on the bed. Steven lurched forward and then caught himself once his mouth had gone off onto Joe’s shoulder, and once most of his weight had dropped into Joe’s lap.

Joe scrabbled backwards with his hands, losing Steven’s, and then fell over onto his back. His right foot went up and hit something, so he jerked it back and then his knee knocked into Steven, shoving him forward. Steven caught himself on his forearms just before they broke each other’s noses.

Real cool, Joe thought, pissed at himself again, and then he looked up and Steven was just…right there over him. He didn’t look annoyed, and he wasn’t looking like he was going to make fun of Joe either. He just was up there, and then he gave a little shrug and bent his head and they were making out again.

Maybe a little more speed this time. Steven didn’t just wave his hands around, actually put them down and kept them on Joe’s hips, his thumbs rolling up over the waistband, pushing at Joe’s shirt till they got under that. His hair was getting in Joe’s face and Joe got his hand up to push it away and ended up hooking it around the back of Steven’s neck, trying to pull the other man closer. Steven did something with his tongue in Joe’s mouth that made Joe twist before it even—and then he twisted again, really feeling it, and gradually he realized he was maybe moaning. He’d fisted his other hand in Steven’s shirt, really his shirt, really too damn baggy on Steven since Joe couldn’t figure out where its ends were, when he did figure that out, he just stuck his hands under it because he figured it was another way to get Steven to stop—stop kind of fucking around in his mouth, like they were just messing with this, because it was getting to the point that Joe really kind of wanted to—

—he shifted, different perspective different fucking _senses_ , and he felt Steven buck up and off to the side, and then he shifted back and the world didn’t quite follow, and he fell on the goddamn floor.

Joe hissed and pushed himself onto his side. His foot hit something that skittered off across the boards, probably that fucking skull, and then he pulled in his legs and rolled onto them. He got up on his knees and looked up. Steven was looking back at him from the edge of the bed.

“I thought you said it wasn’t like that,” Joe finally said.

“Well, I didn’t think you were pissed off just now, Hulk.” Then Steven sighed. He sat up, pushing the hair back from his rolling eyes. “No, it’s really not. It’s just…it’s kind of weird. Took me a while to get the hang of it, because in the beginning you can’t—you can’t _do_ it when you want to. You do it when you’re not thinking about it. It’s a lot like getting wood that way.”

Joe started to say something, then just exhaled. He got off his knees and sat down.

“Which is ironic as hell, considering what we were trying to do just now,” Steven added.

“Are you done?” Joe muttered.

Steven blinked hard, like maybe he’d been so busy trying to work out that really fucking weird chain of thought of his that he’d forgotten Joe was there. He folded his legs like some guru, knees out, feet flat against each other, and grabbed his feet and rocked a couple of times. “Look, I’m just…I’m still working this out here, okay? But you do figure it out eventually.”

“Yeah, well, how?” Joe snapped.

For a couple seconds Steven just squeezed at his feet. “Stayed out in the woods all night till I got it under control. Not to say that there isn’t a different way, because there probably is, but…”

Joe lifted his hand. Then he put it down. Then he just pushed himself over onto his back till his head hit Steven’s dresser and blew out all his frustration at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ.”

“Hey, watch that,” Steven scolded, getting off the bed. He stretched over Joe and rearranged something on top of his dresser, and then he went around to get the skull.

“What the fuck now?” Joe muttered. He banged his head against the dresser again and he heard something falling over on top of it, but just didn’t even look over for Steven’s annoyed grunt. “This is just way fucking… _fucked_. I mean, Jesus, can I even go home? Am I going to freak out my parents?”

“My mom took it pretty well, I thought,” Steven said. He came back to stand over Joe. “She saw the point of me living out here till I got it all handled, too. Didn’t want me scratching up all the furniture.”

Steven cocked his head, like that was supposed to be funny. “So what, I’m going to shred my fucking guitar the next time I play it?” Joe said.

“And you said you weren’t going to freak out,” Steven said, his voice rising. He was going to toss in more, but maybe Joe moved or something like that, because Steven suddenly shut his mouth. He pressed his lips together, rubbing one hand against his hip, and then he folded himself down by Joe so fast that Joe didn’t even have time to sit up. “Look, I figured it out. I don’t really…I can’t really give you five steps or anything like that, but I did it, and I was way more fucked-up than you when this all went down. I mean, I almost got taken to a hospital and wouldn’t _that_ have gone well. So I don’t think you need to be freaking out this much.”

Joe put his hands down on the floor. He pushed himself off the dresser, leaned on his hands for another couple seconds, and then sighed and dropped his hands in his lap. “I’m not freaking out. I just…what am I supposed to do now? Run around outside till I get it?”

“No, because one, traps all over the place, and two, isn’t there still a big hunt going on?” Steven paused, looking over Joe, and then almost smiled. He wanted to do it but didn’t really let his mouth move. “So you’re not freaking out.”

“Okay. Maybe a little.” Then Joe opened his mouth and surprisingly enough, a laugh came out. “Okay. But I probably shouldn’t go home yet, maybe. I don’t know.”

“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know your parents,” Steven said, shrugging. Something just past Joe caught his eye and he twined himself around Joe’s legs to shift the drums stacked against the wall. He moved them maybe two inches. “I guess if that’s what’s freaking you out, you can sack out here for a couple days. And—” he held up his hand to keep Joe from protesting “—since actually, you’re not freaking out, and not in the mood now either, I think I’m gonna crash.”

And he crawled back onto the bed, kicking off his shoes. He used his toes to pull off his socks and then flopped over. After another moment, during which Steven really did look like he was serious about going to sleep, Joe shuffled up to the bed. He looked at the space that was left, then out the door. Now that he was thinking about it, he could hear Tom snoring.

Joe pulled himself onto the bed and turned around to sit on the edge. He heard Steven move but just bent over to take off his shoes and socks. Then he got down on his side, back to Steven.

“Okay, now,” Steven said.

“Tom’s on the couch,” Joe said. His shirt hiked up on him and he pushed at it, then sat up long enough to just get it off. He wadded it up and stuffed it under the bed. “You got an airbed or anything like that somewhere?”

“No.” Steven could’ve been laughing or could’ve been grinding his teeth. He wasn’t speaking up enough to be sure.

Joe shifted around a little, getting his arm folded comfortably, and then settled down. He was listening for any more from Steven, but Steven slid around and couldn’t figure out where to put his arms and was humming or mumbling to himself, or both, and wasn’t trying to shove Joe out of the bed. So Joe figured it was fine. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them, and looked at the dresser across from the bed and all the things on it.

“Hey,” he said, and listened for Steven’s breathing to change. “Hey, so…thanks. You know, for…”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want anybody to get too fucked up over this,” Steven sighed. He moved and some part of him bumped into Joe’s back. Not hard, probably not on purpose, and it moved back before Joe got much more than a brush of warmth. “Even my stupid fucking ex-bandmates, you know, it’s not like I’m reporting them to the research labs or anything. It’s all just…you might be a dick, but it doesn’t seem like this is something people should be dicks over. Plenty of other shit to fight about.”

“Yeah.” Joe closed his eyes. “Okay, yeah. Thanks.”

Steven mumbled something back, sounding sleepy. Then he went really quiet. So quiet that Joe rolled over to check, and Steven shifted around and snorted once, but he didn’t wake up. He’d just gone—out. Like that. Lucky bastard.

Joe watched him for a while, wishing he could do that too, and eventually rolled back over. He wasn’t going to figure it out just wishing he was Steven. He’d just have to get it done his way, he thought, and then he drifted off. 

* * *

“Okay,” Tom said. When Joe opened his eyes, Tom was standing over the bed and rubbing his chin. “So I guess the plan worked well.”

“Plan?” Steven mumbled. Then he grunted and shoved Joe’s elbow out of his stomach. He’d ended up curled into Joe’s back at some point and now he was pushing at Joe like it was the other way around. “What plan?”

Joe rolled over, then flinched when something swung over him. It turned out to just be Steven’s arm as the other man threw himself into a yawn, but Joe could feel his head—get lightheaded for a second, like he’d just stepped onto a merry-go-round—and he tensed up and then it went away. Steven finished the yawn and looked down, and he got it right away. He was going to touch Joe’s shoulder or somewhere around there.

“Oh. Did we talk about the plan?” Tom couldn’t still be stoned, but he was squinting his eyes as if he was on something. “Last night is a little…not there. I mean, I thought we had werewolves.”

Instead of touching Joe, Steven shot him a look. Joe looked back at him and Steven hitched his shoulders and widened his eyes, demanding that he do something.

“Oh, damn. Okay, so that really happened. I was hoping it was one of those really fucking weird trips,” Tom muttered. He ran his hands over his face and when he took them down, he looked a little more with it. “Huh. You’re both still in bed.”

“You took up the whole couch,” Joe finally said. He turned around and swung his legs off the bed. His head spun for a second and he grabbed at the bedframe, thinking he was going to—but no, he was just groggy. “So…the wolf thing.”

“Was that the plan?” Steven mostly sounded curious, with a little amusement in there. He wasn’t really making fun of them.

Joe got up and then tripped over something so he couldn’t stop Tom. “No, the plan was to get Joe to flirt with you so you’d come join our band, and maybe also make him stop pretending like he doesn’t want to flirt with you,” Tom said.

“Tom, I’m going to kill you,” Joe said.

“Is that the wolf thing?” Tom asked, and he was being funny but he sounded funny, too. His voice got nervous.

He looked like he wished he hadn’t said that. He and Joe stared at each other for a couple seconds, and then Joe moved forward and Tom jerked out of the doorway. Joe stared at his friend again, with just no idea what to say or do, and honestly, no idea at all except that he did not like this at all.

“Um, okay, no homicide in my place, man. It’s hell on the rugs,” Steven said. He laughed, like they really were going to go with that, and then cleared his throat and sat on the bed and looked down at the sheets. “Um. So I do believe that the plan did come up at one point. And it’s cool that you guys have a band and all, and I’m flattered that you want me in it, but…well, maybe we want to…work on other shit first?”

“I should go see my parents,” Joe finally said. He pulled at his jeans, then ran one hand through his hair. His mouth tasted better than it usually would after a night out, but it still wasn’t tasting like something he wanted to have all day. “I don’t…think it would be great to tell them, at least right now, but I don’t want them to think anything’s weird. And I think they’d get more worried if I didn’t at least go home today. I can sneak out once they’ve seen me.”

“Yeah, okay, let me just clean up and then I’ll walk you guys down.” Steven bounced to his feet, suddenly excited. He ran around Joe a couple times, grabbing at things, and when he turned around he was in basically a completely different outfit.

He went out the door like Tom wasn’t even there, and then Joe heard a door creak somewhere else in the cabin. Joe got up and went over to look down the hall, pulling at his cramped shoulder, and slid past Tom so he could get into the bathroom next.

“Hey,” Tom said.

Joe paused, then let out his breath and turned around. “Yeah?”

“Hey, this…” Tom waved his hand around “…you look okay, anyway.”

“You think?” Joe muttered. He glanced at the bathroom—Steven was _singing_ , sort of, sounding like he was trying to gargle at the same time—and then looked back at Tom. He pulled his hand through his hair again, then grimaced at what he smelled like. “This is pretty weird. But I guess, what he was saying, I guess that if I just keep worrying about it, nothing’s going to happen. It’s only when I’m not thinking about it, and that’s not going to happen much.”

Tom nodded. He looked at the bathroom too, not believing that Steven could sound that good even with a toothbrush or whatever in his mouth, and then he stepped back and chuckled nervously at the floor. “Hey, so we still…we have a band, right?”

“Well, we don’t have a drummer and we need a singer and Jesus Christ, this is so— _stupid_.” Joe picked up his foot and went to kick the wall, and then made himself put it down. He took a deep breath. “Yeah. You’re not leaving, are you?”

“No. I wasn’t really thinking about it, even with this new weird thing, but…okay. Okay. No, I’m not going. Fuck it, it’s weird, but you’re still you.” Tom shrugged. Then he coughed into his hand and put his other hand to his stomach, looking a little uncomfortable. He caught Joe’s look and snorted and shook his head. “No, man, I stayed inside and away from all werewolves and other weird things in the night. But you’d better wait to get breakfast at home, because some of the shit in Steven’s fridge isn’t so good.”

“You ate?”

Tom shrugged again, hunching over more with it. “I got hungry, man. You two were so quiet in there and…so…about that.”

The first thing that came to mind was to tell Tom to fuck off. The second thing was that Joe felt warm in the face, so he touched his cheek and yeah, it really was warm. He went to kick the wall again and this time didn’t stop himself.

“It was really quiet,” Tom said again. “I figured if it was really happening, I would’ve woken up, so…”

“I went and turned into a wolf on him, and it got weird.” Joe pressed his hand over his face. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Nodding, Tom edged forward. It took a moment for Joe to figure out that the other man wanted to go past him; when Joe moved out of the way, Tom craned around to peek into the bathroom. Then he pulled himself back, looking relieved. “He’s still singing. Okay, so was he weirded out? And why? I mean, he’s one, so…”

“I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t like other ones. I mean, the other ones he knows about all seem to be assholes, so…and I said I didn’t want to talk about it.” Joe glared at Tom. “This is not a fucking plan anymore, okay?”

“Yeah, obviously, because now you’re actually into it, so it’s about getting this shit taken care of so we can get to having fun again,” Tom said. He held up under Joe’s glare for a while longer, then sighed and put out his hand. “Look. He’s still talking to us, so it wasn’t that bad, whatever you did after I got all tripped out. But you’re going to act like it went the worst way possible, which is stupid for at least because we need to get him to help us out since he knows way more about this wolf thing than we do. And then also, because maybe he’ll—”

Steven came out of the bathroom. He smelled minty and relaxed—Joe started, because that was a new smell and a new connection in his head and they were both just _there_ like they’d always been there—and his hair looked tousled instead of rat’s nest. “Maybe I’ll what? Molest Joe some more?”

“So…super senses come with this thing?” Tom finally said. He was trying, but he still sounded pretty weak and embarrassed. And now that Joe was thinking about it, that came out in the smell, too.

“Yep, heard it all and hey, I never said I wasn’t going to think about it. You guys owe me a fuck for last night, anyway.” Steven grinned at them, then stepped over to Joe and slung an arm over Joe’s shoulders. He glanced over at Joe’s start but pulled Joe up against him anyway. “Besides, when you’re not being a dick, you’re pretty cute.”

Then he gave Joe a big, wet, smacking kiss on the cheek, like some clown. He was already dropping his arm too, but Joe grabbed that and yanked Steven back. He felt Steven stiffen and heard the little pause in Steven’s breath and smelled the nerves on the man, and he stopped for a second, just this far from Steven’s face. Then he just fucking kissed him.

Steven just let him, till Joe got frustrated and let go of Steven’s arm, and then Steven put that arm up and put his hand around the back of Joe’s neck, pulling him in, and yeah, Tom was right. Obviously it wasn’t going that badly.

“Okay, then,” Tom said. “I guess we’re all having fun.”

Joe and Steven broke it off and looked at Tom at the same time. Tom rolled his eyes and turned around. “I’ll be in the other room, wishing I’d brought more pot for this,” he said. “You let me know when we’re going.”

* * *

After Joe got himself cleaned up and dug some bread out from behind the rest of Steven’s food—which didn’t smell or look so bad to Joe, but maybe that was the wolf thing and he did not want to go there this early in the morning—they started out for the road, where they’d left Tom’s car. Steven slowed them up pointing out every damn marker he’d set up for old hunting traps and other random shit, but it wasn’t that annoying. When he wasn’t trying to prove himself the wisest ass in the room he was a lot funnier.

He actually was into a lot of shit besides himself too that Joe never would’ve guessed. Music and books and from the sound of things, he’d done everything in New York except for getting his band to go anywhere. A lot of sex stories, which had Joe and Tom sliding incredulous looks at each other—except Joe could tell that Steven didn’t _think_ he was exaggerating. That was one of the cooler parts of this whole fucking mess.

A couple times Joe mistook a shiver for that coming over him again and got nervous, but nothing happened. And then once, when Steven was way into a monologue about his childhood and some big rock, Joe hung back and really _tried_ , and nothing happened there either.

He was almost thinking maybe it wasn’t really a werewolf thing so much as just a weird mutant thing when they got to where they could see the car and he got a blast of—of just real pissed-off, frustrated, scared, fucking fucked-up smell, somebody losing it, and it threw Joe so much that he was staring up at Tom and Steven before he realized.

“You look—” Tom glanced at Steven “—does he look smaller? He looked bigger last night.”

Steven wasn’t even looking at Joe. He was staring down the hill, pulling at his hair, his lips twitching like he was trying not to growl. Then he threw up his hands and just marched off.

_This is so fucking stupid don’t want it_ and then Joe was back on two feet. And sprawled on his ass, because he could change while standing but for some reason couldn’t change back the same way. He should’ve been excited about at least figuring out how to change back when he wanted to, but instead he was just pissed off.

“Where’s he going?” Tom said, looking after Steven. “Is somebody down there?”

He gave Joe a hand up, then tried to pull Joe back as Joe started after Steven. Joe shook him off. “That asshole,” Joe said. “I think it’s that—the one who got me. His old guitar player.”

Steven was going fast, about as fast as he could go without running, and he started yelling before Joe even saw for sure that it was this Peter. By the time Joe got down the hill, Steven and this other man were circling around each other in front of Tom’s car, shouting and waving their arms at each other.

“—fucking tell us!” the other man was saying.

“Yeah, well, try pulling that one when you aren’t fucking locking me in,” snapped Steven. “You fucking son of a _bitch_. You’re lucky I just left instead of ripping out your ass, Peter.”

“What?” Joe said. He stopped and leaned against a tree to catch his breath.

Peter didn’t even look over. Just cocked his head at Joe. “So that’s what you’re doing up here?”

“Hey, you fucking brought him into this.” Steven stepped back, looking like he wished he could rethink that. Then he shook his head. “You fucking snagged him last night, you asshole. So if you wanna talk about just _playing it safe_ —”

“Yeah, well, just proves that you shouldn’t hang out with normal people, doesn’t it?” Peter said. “He wouldn’t have been in my way if it wasn’t for you.”

Joe had his breath back, so he walked over and punched Peter in the face. Peter only turned at the last second, too busy listening to Steven’s retort—which was pretty good—and then he tried to kick Joe. Joe jumped out of the way and then had to jump again because Steven came over and whacked Peter so Peter finally fell onto the ground.

“He didn’t make you fucking come after him, and he didn’t make you grab my leg,” Joe told Peter. “You’re a piece of shit and _you_ shouldn’t hang out with anybody.”

“I’m not fucking—” Steven glanced at Joe, pulling the hair back from his face, and then turned on Peter “—I’m out, all right? I’m out. I’m finding my own way. And you got a problem with that, well—Jesus, Peter, what the hell did you think you were going to do? Knock me out and drag me back and _make_ me stay? How was that going to work out?”

Peter pushed himself up quick and both Steven and Joe slid back. But Peter just laid there on his arms, staring up at them. Mostly at Steven, but he gave Joe a couple disbelieving looks. He worked his mouth a couple times and then he just pulled himself up and put his arms on his knees.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I just…don’t you feel like we should stick together? Just—just, you know, because we’re all in this?” He stared up at Steven. “Don’t you feel that?”

“No.” Steven started to add more, but then he looked at Peter again. “No, I…I really don’t. I mean, I wish you guys the best of luck and all, but…no. No. Look, I’m sorry, man, but I don’t.”

“You don’t?” Peter said. He looked like he didn’t even understand the words, and—and he really didn’t, from all that Joe could tell.

Joe still would have liked to hit him again, because it wasn’t goddamn rocket science. Maybe that came off him, because Steven got him by the arm just then; Joe looked over, but Steven was still frowning at Peter.

“No,” Steven said.

Peter sucked in his breath like Joe had hit him, somewhere low in the gut. He looked at Joe again, as if Joe was supposed to explain something to him, and then started to get up. Steven pulled on Joe’s arm again and finally Joe got back enough for Peter to get onto his feet.

“Next time you grab my leg, I’m going to break yours,” Joe said.

“Hey, man, look,” Peter started, and then he did one of those glances that started on Joe and went to Steven. He still smelled like he was upset, but it wasn’t like a slap in your face anymore and so it didn’t make much sense when he started laughing under his breath. “Look, I didn’t mean to. I thought it was Steven’s leg. But you know, you don’t look that fucking mad, considering it’s worked out pretty good for you.”

Joe punched him again. With his weaker hand, since Steven still had his left arm, but it was a pretty good hit. By then Tom was down by the car as well, and Peter obviously knew Tom wasn’t a werewolf so he got nervous, and when Steven suggested that Peter just fuck off and call when he had gotten his temper under control, Peter took it. He still wanted to make something of it with Joe, but not more than he wanted to get away from any fucking “normal” person.

“Well, I think it’ll be a while before I get that phone call,” Steven said. He sighed and finally let go of Joe’s arm, rubbing his hands over his face. “I hope so. He always had a really hard time giving up his girlfriends too, but…God, I don’t even know what that was.”

“If he does call, let me know,” Joe muttered.

“So you can knock him over again?” Now Steven was grinning at him. “He fights better when he’s wolfed out. I think he was trying to watch his ass since he could smell Tom there.”

Joe shrugged. “Well, whenever he gets back, I’ll have this under control and we can do it whatever way, and I’ll still kick his ass.”

“Pissed off is a really good look on you,” Steven said, and when Joe looked at him, he grabbed Joe by the chin and showed just how good a look he thought it was.

“Jesus, not on my car,” Tom said from behind them.

Steven ignored him and shoved Joe right up against Tom’s car, getting his hand into Joe’s back pocket while he was at it. Joe…didn’t really see a reason to make Steven pay attention. To Tom, anyway.

“Guys,” Tom said. “Come on. Really.”

“So anyway, here’s the car,” Steven said, finally backing off. He leaned on Joe for another second, then pulled his arms down. “I guess—”

“You want to come over?” Joe said. He grabbed Steven’s arm, then tried to think of something else to say. “I just have to make sure my parents know I got home, you know?”

Steven raised his brows. “And get yelled at by somebody else’s parents?”

“Well, then wait in the car like Tom does,” Joe said, rolling his eyes. He tugged at Steven’s arm. “Look, I’ve…I want to ask you a couple more things about this, but if I do get yelled at, they’re not going to let me out right away.”

“We usually get him out the bedroom window,” Tom chipped in.

Steven laughed, but he wasn’t really into it. He was looking at Joe and he was a little surprised, and also pleased, and—which Joe didn’t get either—confused. He rocked on his feet a few times, then sighed and threw up his hands. “Fine. I’ve gone this far, might as well.”

* * *

Joe’s parents hadn’t heard about the car yet, amazingly enough, but they were pretty upset. He hoped that Tom and Steven hadn’t just waited around because it was a good hour before he even got himself away from his parents, and then he hoped that Tom had managed to keep Steven occupied enough so the guy didn’t jump out the car window again. Then he just hoped that he wouldn’t turn in front of his parents, because he didn’t think he quite had that figured out yet.

By the time he got up to his bedroom, he was so frustrated that he just grunted at Steven’s greeting. Then he jumped and hissed and slammed the door shut behind him.

“What?” Steven was flopped on his belly in the middle of Joe’s bed, reading some of Joe’s music magazines. “Thought you wanted me to come over.”

“How’d you get in here?” Joe said, and then saw the slightly open window. “Oh. Oh, Jesus, well, you could’ve…warned me.”

“Your parents were yelling at you and I didn’t want to interrupt so they wouldn’t find out I was sneaking into their son’s room,” Steven said, turning the page.

Joe took a closer look and realized Steven wasn’t just looking at his music magazines. He started forward, then went back and checked that his door was locked. Then he climbed onto the bed and swiped his yearbook from Steven. “Okay, fine, but…but Jesus. Where’s Tom?”

“Back at the car,” Steven said, cocking his head at the window. “According to him, we should probably wait some before we sneak you out, so they don’t get suspicious.”

“And you being in here’s not suspicious?”

Steven propped his chin on his fists and looked up at Joe. “Do you want me to leave?”

After a couple seconds, Joe just leaned over and slid his yearbook under the bed. Then he pulled himself back up, pushing his legs out so he was lying next to Steven. Some of the magazines slid under him and he pulled them out and stuck them under the bed too.

“Okay,” Steven said. “So you had some questions?”

“Yeah,” Joe said. He pushed himself up on his arms and twisted around and kissed Steven, who tried to say something smart about it. So Joe got off one arm and used it to shove Steven over, then slid on top of him, and Steven stopped trying to be a wise-ass.

They rolled over again, real close to the edge, and then went back the other way while trying to get rid of their shirts. Joe’s shirt just unbuttoned but Steven had one that had to get pulled off, and that was so annoying that Joe just got to shoving it up Steven’s chest before he gave up and dropped back down onto the bed. 

Steven didn’t seem to mind, just moving his mouth to Joe’s throat and it felt so good that Joe forgot to do anything for…for a while. Forgot how to keep track of time too, just lying there pressed up against Steven, letting Steven’s mouth run shivers down his spine.

Eventually Steven started shifting against him, just rubbing at first, and then pushing his hips pretty hard. Joe put his hand down on one, didn’t really know what he was doing still, and Steven finally got his hand between them. Pressed his palm to Joe’s belly for a second, hot like a brand, and then snaked it into Joe’s jeans. That woke something in Joe’s head and he pulled open Steven’s fly, trying to twist his hips at the same time because Steven really fucking _knew_ where to touch, where to dig in and where to just slide his fingers, and then Steven got around to returning the favor.

Joe managed to twist half out of his jeans before Steven’s hand on his cock made figuring out how to get the rest of the way out seem really unimportant. He scratched Steven’s leg without thinking about it, up until Steven bit his lip, and then he shoved himself against the other man, just trying to jam Steven’s hand in between them.

It worked and it—worked way beyond what Joe was trying to do. He bit Steven’s shoulder, didn’t mean to do it, just had to stick something in his mouth to keep himself quiet, and Steven was muffling deep, bottom-throat rough noises in Joe’s hair. Steven started pushing at Joe’s shoulder and Joe was so far gone he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t even move, and Steven kept pushing till he got Joe’s dead weight shifted over, because _oh_ right, both their cocks in his hand, he had the long fingers for it, and he was muffling his noises in Joe’s mouth now. 

Jesus. Joe sucked on Steven’s shoulder again, trying to keep his hips still, trying not to get away from Steven’s hand because that was what felt so fucking good, but he didn’t manage it. He dug his free hand into the bed and pressed his face into Steven’s neck, still trying, and trying, and then he lost his grip and his fingers skidded over the blanket as he gasped and jerked and came.

Steven went another couple of strokes, but Joe hadn’t even finished his first shaking breath after when Steven went stiff against him, just trembling in place. Then he inhaled, sharp and deep through his nose, and slumped down.

“Oh,” Joe muttered after a while. Then he wrinkled his nose. “Why do I smell roses?”

“Don’t know, why do you have rose-smelling lotion?” Steven muttered back. He wiped his hand on Joe’s bare hip, and then playfully bit Joe’s ear when Joe smacked that hand. Then he twisted around to get something to wipe them off, coming up with a handful of tissues. “First thing I grabbed.”

Joe had no idea, and then he remembered one of his relatives gifting it to him way back in the winter, after they’d seen the cracked skin on his hands. He’d just tossed it under the bed and forgotten about it. Not that it really mattered that much. Or being sticky, though since Steven was so fucking insistent he let the man scrub at them. Then he crawled back onto Steven, already missing the warmth. He put his head back into the curve of Steven’s neck and it just felt like he should’ve always been there.

Steven moved around a little, but mostly to get rid of the tissues, to drop one arm around Joe. He wasn’t uncomfortable with Joe lying on top of him, though when Joe finally looked up, Steven was staring at the ceiling and thinking something over.

“Peter—” he started.

“Is an asshole,” Joe mumbled. He put his head down. “Also, I bet I play better than him.”

Steven snorted. He shook his head, then blinked a few times. Then he sighed and looked at the window. “How long’s it been, you think?”

Tom had waited a lot longer, Joe almost said. He finally just shrugged. He didn’t want to get up, but he knew they couldn’t just lie around. But he didn’t want to be the one making them get up either.

“Okay, come on.” Steven started to move with a purpose, pulling at his limbs and bumping at Joe. “Get your guitar. I want to hear this before some other asshole from my past shows up.”

Joe sighed, but he rolled off. His legs tangled in his jeans and he took a second to peel them down, then went about hunting up a fresh pair.

“Don’t look so disappointed,” Steven said. “You can ask me more questions after.”

He gave Joe that wide smirk of his. After a moment, Joe just went back to pulling on his new jeans, while Steven fussed with his clothes. Joe finished first and went to the bed and kissed Steven hard enough to get rid of the smirk. _Then_ he got his guitar.

* * *

Tom and his car were not where Steven claimed he’d left them, but he pulled up the street before Steven could get too worked up over it. He took a long look at them while they were getting in, but waited till they were in the backseat before he held up his phone.

“So I was doing some wildlife reading on the Internet,” he said. “I don’t know how much you actually are like regular wolves, but I thought this part about mating habits was interesting.”

“Mating?” Joe said.

Steven gave the phone one glance, then went back to straightening his shirt while digging his shoulder into the side of Joe’s arm. They weren’t on opposite ends of the seat anymore. “You just figured you’d read about the sex lives of wolves?”

Tom put down the phone. “Yeah. So very often, young wolves are loners, and especially the males. They run around and screw any female they can, including ones that are already in packs. But as soon as they find an actual mate, they start their own pack. And then they stick with that mate for life. I just thought that that was interesting.”

“Yeah,” Joe said after a long moment. He looked at Steven.

Steven had given up on the shirt and was looking hard at Tom, who was doing a fair job at acting like he really just wanted to share interesting news with them. Then he suddenly jerked to the side, his nostrils flaring.

Joe smelled it too, but he’d barely gotten his hand on the door when suddenly this man was on the other side. He looked pretty big and he had a beard and really long brown hair, and he tapped on the window, then made a signal for them to roll it down.

“Who’s that?” Tom said.

“Oh, the bear,” Steven said, his voice strained. “Christ. How did he do that?”

Tom looked at them, then at the man waiting outside. “We should go, right?”

“Please open up,” the man said. “I just would like to have a word, and I’d like to have it before the hunters crawling all over this place notice anything odd, so while I’m normally averse to violence, I may puncture your tires if I have to.”

Tom looked back at Steven and Joe. Steven stared at the man for another second, then lifted his hand towards the window. He paused and looked at Joe, who bit his lip. Then he started moving back from the window; Steven got what he was doing and slid onto the edge of the seat to make room for Joe. Then Joe stretched out his arm and rolled down the window.

“Steven Tyler?” the man said, smiling pleasantly. “I’m John. I heard your group in New York at what I think was your last gig—”

“I’m not with them anymore,” Steven said.

“Yes, so I gathered.” After a look around the car, the man gave Joe and Tom nods before continuing. “Anyway, I think the balance was off in that group, so I don’t consider it a great loss.”

Steven straightened up, settling his folded arm on Joe’s shoulder. “Hey, look, I might not agree with the guys anymore, but—”

“I’m not insulting you or them, Mr. Tyler,” the man said. “I’m saying that, in my opinion as a scout for Sony Music, I think you have a great talent and that in the right setting, with the right combination, a band of yours and Sony could have a very fruitful relationship. Now, I’ve also gathered that you’re dealing with some personal issues right now and I want to assure you that Sony is very understanding as to such matters. I’ll be back in New York by the end of the week, but why don’t you give me a call when you’re ready?”

Then he handed Steven a business card through the window. Steven took it and looked at it as if it was made of gold. “Shit,” he said quietly. “Yeah, I’ll call. I’ll…so wait, they know?”

“They know that certain people in the organization require special arrangements, which are perfectly acceptable provided that these people justify the extra expense. But that’s something we can discuss later,” the man said. He nodded to Tom and Joe again. “Also, we can discuss the merits of activated carbon in reducing scent. It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Tyler.”

Steven and Joe and Tom all stared at him as the man turned around and walked away. The guy got nearly to the end of the street before Steven finally pulled himself up and put his head out the window, and shouted a thanks after him. Then he flopped back and stared at Joe. “Did that just happen?”

“So he’s a bear?” Tom said. “A bear just tried to sign you to a record deal?”

“Well, no, he said my band could get signed,” Steven said, blinking hard. “Okay, look, I don’t want to play drums anymore. I want to sing. So we definitely need a drummer. And maybe another guitar.”

Joe and Tom looked at him, then at each other. Then Joe cleared his throat. “Don’t you…don’t you need to hear us first?”

“Yeah, yeah, obviously, but even if you’re shit I think we can just work on it,” Steven muttered. He ran his hand back through his hair, staring out the windshield and chewing on his lip. “Mated for life, we’ve got time.”

“Seriously?” Joe said.

Steven looked over, frowning, and then straightened up. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Then he shifted around in his seat. “I was joking,” he said slowly. He shrugged one shoulder and gave Joe a smile that didn’t really fit his face. “I don’t know if all that shit applies to us. But…well, I need a band, and you guys wanted to play with me anyway, and at least we all know about this wolf thing. So let’s just see if it works for this.”

“Yeah,” Joe finally said. He watched Steven relax, and felt his own shoulders drop out of their tense stance. “Yeah. We’ll try it out.”

“Good,” Steven said. He smiled again and this time he looked as if he’d been born to it. Then he leaned over, dropping his arm around Joe’s shoulders, and kissed Joe long enough for Joe to wish Tom wasn’t around to get antsy about it. “Good, because I like you too. You’re pretty fucking hot away from the guitar, so hopefully you’re not too cold with it.”

“I’m not. You’ll see.” Joe settled under Steven’s arm, then rolled his eyes at Tom’s smug look. “Shut up and drive, all right? Let’s get on this already.”

Tom still looked smug, but he turned around and hit the gas. About time they got going.


End file.
